(CNN) -- This time, history didn't repeat itself. Democratic Rep. Ed Markey Tuesday won a special U.S. Senate election in Massachusetts, topping Republican businessman and former Navy SEAL Gabriel Gomez in an election marked by low voter turnout. The contest was the second time in three years that Massachusetts voters headed to the polls in a special U.S. Senate election with national implications. In January 2010, little-known Republican state Sen. Scott Brown upset Martha Coakley, the Commonwealth's Democratic attorney general, in a contest to fill the remainder of the term of longtime Democratic Sen. Ted Kennedy, who died the previous summer. Brown's victory set the stage for the GOP wave in the November 2010 midterm elections.
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The election is marked by low voter turnout
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Markey beats Gomez 55%-45%
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Democrats greatly outspend Republicans in the contest
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Gomez has hinted he'll run again
But look at us now," said Gomez in his concession speech about 90 minutes after the polls closed in the @placeholder.
If he wants to stay in the Senate past next year, @placeholder will need to run for re-election in November 2014, when a full six-year term will be at stake.