Some in Massachusetts say Ted invented the “graveyard vote” and I tend to agree.
For decades he has won re-election by large margins but I can’t find anybody who has ever admitted to voting for him.
His biggest Senate challenge came in 1994 from Mitt Romney, where it looked like Teddy was finally on his way out. But Romney played the “gentleman” and refused to hammer on all of Ted’s many scandals, which cost him the election. (Romney later won the governorship in Massachusetts, which I suspect might have been payback from the Kennedy machine.)
Romney lost because he rejected the Reagan era and tried to run as a me-too liberal, in a year that saw Republicans take back Congress.