AG challenger garners nearly 30,000 write-ins

An upstart Republican politician has gotten nearly three times the signatures needed to mount a surprise write-in challenge to Attorney General Martha Coakley, who blew a U.S. Senate race to Scott Brown earlier this year.

Massachusetts Secretary of State William Galvin said Tuesday that James McKenna of Millbury garnered 27,711 votes in last week's primary. The former prosecutor needed 10,000 to qualify for the Nov. 2 general election ballot.  McKenna appears to be the first candidate in Massachusetts political history to win a statewide nomination via a write-in campaign.

The Massachusetts Republican establishment was embarrassed in May after failing to find a nominee to challenge Coakley. The veteran Democrat was widely derided after Brown and the GOP beat her to win January's special election to replace the late Sen. Edward Kennedy.