Brackett's term in office marked a low point in the state Republican party, and he was described by historian Richard Harmond as "pliable and mediocre". The party was internally divided between the Mugwumps and Blaine supporters, as well as between its younger and older leaders. The state's liquor control laws were a major subject that also caused the party some difficulty. Much of the party leadership was generally in favor of such laws, but opposed outright prohibition. For political purposes, the party had in 1886 formally declared support for a state constitutional amendment banning alcohol, but this had failed to draw significant support from the temperance community. A popular referendum for the enshrinement of prohibition in the Massachusetts State Constitution failed in 1889, upsetting advocates of prohibition, and Brackett took up their cause in a different way. Although he had opposed the amendment, he ordered stepped-up enforcement of the existing laws, which closed bars that did not serve food. There was a popular backlash, and Republican appeals to anti-Catholic nativist sentiment also drove many French-Canadian Catholic supporters into the Democratic fold. These combined with the negative effects of the McKinley Tariff on the Massachusetts economy to cost Brackett reelection. He was defeated in the 1890 election by Democrat William E. Russell in one of the most successful elections for Democrats in the state since the American Civil War.