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A major subplot of this years midterm elections is the competition between the Republican establishment and the tea party wing of the party. The establishment is fighting back, but has the tea party already won?

The general election is still six months off. But Tuesday opens the summer preseason of intraparty contests, starting with an important primary in North Carolina. Between now and the end of June, more than two dozen states will hold primary elections. After a July break, the preseason will end with another round of primaries in August and early September.

Most closely watched for clues about the balance of power in the GOP will be the five primaries in which incumbent senators face direct challenges from tea party conservatives. They are Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.), Thad Cochran (Miss.), Lindsey Graham (S.C.), Pat Roberts (Kan.) and Lamar Alexander (Tenn.).

At this point, all the incumbents are favored to win. McConnell is first up, with a primary on May 20, against Matt Bevin. One earlier primary also involved a tea party challenge. That was in Texas, where Sen. John Cornyn easily survived.

What does this say about the tea party? One thing it may say is that its not so easy to defeat incumbents in primaries. The reality is that incumbent senators (as well as House members) dont lose primaries very often. They have lost them less often over the past three decades than they did in the three-plus decades before that.

Rhodes Cook, an independent analyst of elections, scoped out the statistics in a recent newsletter. He found that the years between 1982 and 2012 saw fewer Senate and House incumbents defeated in primary elections than in the 34-year period from 1946-1980. In that first period, 38 senators and 147 House members lost primaries; since 1982, only eight senators and 74 House members have been defeated in primaries.

In House races, the most incumbent losses came in the three post-redistricting elections1992, 2002 and 2012when incumbents were sometimes pitted against one another because of newly drawn district lines.

In 2010, three senators were denied their partys nominations: Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who went on to win reelection as a write-in candidate; Utahs Robert Bennett, who was knocked out in a party convention; and the late Arlen Specter, who lost the Democratic Senate primary in Pennsylvania after switching parties. But in no other year between 1982 and 2012 was more than one senator been defeated in a primary.

That provides a baseline for evaluating the tea party challenges this year. There should have been no grand expectations of incumbents falling left and right to the energized tea party wing of the party. But thats not necessarily because the tea party has become a significantly diminished force.

Another reason the challengers might fall to the incumbents is the quality of the candidates. What the Republicans learned in 2010, in primaries involving their own incumbents as well as in primaries picking challengers to Democrats, is that the tea party candidates often werent ready for the primetime of a general election.

Read more:
Balz: Tea party vs. establishment as primary season opens

Defining battles in a Republican Party feud will play out during the next month in primaries that will help determine control of the U.S. Senate and shape the partys priorities before the 2016 presidential campaign.

Starting with North Carolinas election tomorrow, these contests will decide whether the business-backed wing of the party has regained momentum over the limited-government Tea Party movement after a split erupted last year between the two over the importance of lifting the nations debt ceiling.

Its show time, said Scott Reed, a political strategist for the Washington-based U.S. Chamber of Commerce. May and early June is a critical time for candidate selection, if were going to have success in the fall.

Candidates supported by the chamber, the nations largest business lobbying group, and its Republican allies are holding an advantage on the eve of the first test, after applying lessons learned from fights with the Tea Party in the 2010 and 2012 elections that likely cost the party control of the Senate.

Its hard to see a scenario where we have the types of primary outcomes that can cost us seats this cycle, said Brian Walsh, a strategist and former spokesman for the National Republican Senatorial Committee. Generally, every incumbent early on recognized that they had to prepare for a primary. They raised the money, they organized early and they put together strong campaign teams.

Walsh downplayed the importance of the Tea Party-aligned groups in Republican politics.

Their influence in terms of on-the-ground activity and spending money is greatly overstated, he said. They dont raise or spend a whole lot of money on races. Their influence has generally been in the echo chamber, with talk radio and blogs.

Sal Russo, chief strategist of the Sacramento, California-based Tea Party Express, a political action committee, said its too early to write off the movement.

Some of the more establishment candidates are going to win in some states and some Tea Party candidates are going to win in some other states, he said.

Reed, Walsh and other Republicans are working to avoid the nomination of candidates who are untested and vulnerable to losing to Democrats in the November general election.

Read this article:
Republican Civil War Peaks as Primaries Test Tea Party

Jury selection began Monday in the unusual blackmail trial of Sooner Tea Party leader Al Gerhart.

The case is unusual because Gerhart, a carpenter, admits he sent a threatening email to a state senator last year in an effort to get legislation passed.

At issue is whether what he did is illegal. He claims that what he did is constitutionally protected free speech and that it is comparable to the political pressuring that goes on all the time at the Oklahoma Capitol.

The trial in Oklahoma County District Court is expected to last three or four days.

Gerharts attorneys have subpoenaed some state legislators to be defense witnesses.

Ive been told that we are being asked to come in and testify as expert witnesses on the legislative process, said Rep. Joe Dorman, D-Rush Springs.

Dorman, who is running for governor, and Rep. Paul Wesselhoft, R-Moore, are asking the trial judge to excuse them from testifying.

I dont want to miss any potential vote that might come up that I would need to be at the Capitol, Dorman said.

Others subpoenaed to testify for the defense include Rep. Gus Blackwell, R-Laverne; Sen. Bill Brown, R-Broken Arrow; and Rep. Jason Murphey, R-Guthrie.

Sent email

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Tea party leader's blackmail trial begins in Oklahoma County District Court

The month of May will go a long way toward answering one of the overriding questions of Election 2014: Can the Republican establishment finally tame the tea party and retake the Senate?

A month-long series of primaries, stretching across 10 states from the Deep South to the Pacific Northwest, is the first major electoral clash between the GOPs two wings since 2012. It kicks off Tuesday in North Carolina, where the party establishment has lined up behind state House Speaker Thom Tillis against a tea party-aligned foe, Greg Brannon, and another contender who has galvanized the Christian right, Mark Harris.

Republicans in Washington have been pushed around by grass-roots activists for two straight elections. The infighting helped produce poor nominees and cost the party control of the Senate, as some tea party-backed candidates couldnt win general elections and other establishment-backed contenders floundered.

(PHOTOS: Senators up for election in 2014)

If you nominate the wrong candidate, as we have been prone to do sometimes, it diminishes your chances in the general election, said Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.), whose announced retirement triggered a crowded May 20 primary race for his seat. (He is staying neutral in the fight.) It makes it more of an uphill battle if you have a candidate who is not appealing across the board.

This year, the national party has shifted tactics. The GOPs Senate campaign committee has aggressively courted critics on the right while other establishment-aligned groups have sought to prop up their preferred candidates. Republican officials have trained candidates of all stripes, even putting them through campaign schools to gird them for the stresses of the trail. And national party officials have stood up to outside groups targeting sitting GOP senators, at times suggesting theyre more interested in raising money from activists than helping the broader partys cause.

The primaries over the next several weeks will provide the first solid clues whether the approach is working or the GOP is in for more of the same.

(On the Ground: How Lindsey Graham outmaneuvered the tea party)

Texas Sen. John Cornyn, who ran the NRSC in 2010 and 2012, said the past two elections have been a learning experience for all of us. The tea party, he said, was the wind at our backs in 2010, helping the party pick up seven seats that year, even though it left several potential wins on the table.

Then we got divisions within the Republican Party that produced candidates who could get nominated but who couldnt get elected in the general election, Cornyn said. And thats obviously not the goal.

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May primaries to test GOP establishment clout

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