The first Republican senator from the northeastern state of Massachusetts in 30 years is new to the national political scene.
The conservative Brown won a seat held for nearly 50 years by the late Senator Edward "Teddy" Kennedy in a state known as a Democratic stronghold. He did it with a grass-roots campaign featuring a pick-up truck that he used to cross the state.
In his victory speech Tuesday night, he said voters do "not want the trillion-dollar health-care bill that is being forced on the American people."
Brown, a lawyer, has served as a state legislator since 1999. While modeling in his youth, he won Cosmopolitan magazine's "America's Sexiest Man" contest and posed nude for the magazine's June 1982 issue.
Brown's wife, Gail Huff, is a Boston television reporter. In 2007, his daughter, Ayla, was a finalist on the American Idol television series, a popular national singing competition.