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Sen. Mitch McConnell, Senate Republican leader, wins over Tea Party primary challenger. The 30-year Senate veteran rails against powers that be in Washington.

The Republican establishment was on a roll in the Kentucky and Georgia U.S. Senate primaries on Tuesday night, crushing Tea Party challengers but sounding very much like them in declaring victory.

Dour, unloved but tough as nails, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell defeated his Tea Party challenger, businessman Matt Bevin, by a 60-35 percent margin in the Bluegrass State.

But McConnell, once part of a moderate Republican tradition, was sounding hard-right.

The 30-year Senate veteran sought to sound like an insurgent, denouncing the powers that be in Washington. The highly partisan McConnell described his opponent as a partisans partisan. And he declared: A vote for my opponent is a vote for Obamacare.

The Affordable Care Act has worked as well in Kentucky as anywhere in the nation, but McConnell will need in November the 120,000 or so votes that Bevin received. He faces a tough Democratic challenger in Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes.

He made me a stronger candidate . . . Lets have a hand for Matt Bevins, McConnell said in declaring victory, mentioning his challengers name for the first time in anyones memory.

The Georgia primary, for the seat of retiring GOP Sen. Saxby Chambliss, featured five major candidates vying for the Republican nomination.

The two Tea Party favorites, U.S. Reps. Phil Gingery and Paul Broun both known for making radical statements trailed the field, collecting only about 21 percent of the vote between them.

The two frontrunners, headed for a runoff, are establishment GOP Rep. Jack Kingston and free-spending businessman David Perdue.

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No sweetener for Tea Party in Republican primary results