Coakley Faces GOP Challenger After All

Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley has a Republican opponent in November, after all.

James McKenna, a former prosecutor from Millbury, garnered more than the necessary 10,000 write-in signatures during Tuesday's primary elections. That assured him a place on the Nov. 2 general election ballot.

Secretary of State William F. Galvin made the determination Thursday, according to a spokesman.

A second Republican, Guy Carbone, also attempted a write-in campaign, but the results remained in question.

Republican Scott Brown beat Coakley in the special U.S. Senate race to replace the late Edward Kennedy despite seeming Democratic advantages in Massachusetts. Nonetheless, the Massachusetts Republican Party failed to draft any candidates to challenge her in the primary.

That led McKenna and Carbone to attempt write-in campaigns.

McKenna worked for 10 years as a prosecutor, including three years as an assistant district attorney in the organized crime division of the Suffolk County district attorney's office and six years as a prosecutor in the Worcester County district attorney's office.

In 1998 he moved to private practice, but also served as a special assistant district attorney to ask the Supreme Judicial Court to affirm the conviction of the man found guilty of the 1994 murder of Paxton Police Chief Robert Mortell.

The conviction was upheld.

Coakley was first elected as attorney general in 2006.