http://www.opednews.com/articles/June-8-Primary-Tea-Party-by-Steven-Leser-100609-597.html--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By Steven Leser
The June 8 primary provided an interesting glimpse into what November might be like. We've been told over and over by the mainstream media that there is an anti-incumbent and pro Tea Party sentiment in the electorate. You couldn't tell from the June 8 results.
There is more evidence than ever that the Tea Party movement, such as it was, reached its apogee sometime in December of last year or January of this year and has been on a steadily downward trajectory ever since. More tea party candidates lost their bid for their party's nomination than won on June 8th. Most of the tea party winners were concentrated in one state.
Of the states with primaries or runoffs last night, here is a partial list of the Tea Party endorsed candidates who lost their bids for the GOP nomination:
California -
Senate hopeful Chuck Devore lost to Carly Fiorina
Gubernatorial Hopeful Steve Poizner lost to Meg Whitman
Iowa -
Gubernatorial hopeful Bob Vander Plaats lost to Terry Branstad
Montana -
Congressional District 1, congressman hopeful Mark French lost to Denny Rehberg
New Jersey -
Four of five incumbent Republican congressmen faced Tea party opponents in their primaries and all four incumbents won, all four tea party candidates lost.
South Carolina -
Tea Party darling and Gubernatorial candidate Nikki Haley didn't lose but she couldn't get over the 50% threshold to avoid a runoff. The Republican Governor's Association is now trying to help her save face by trying to force Gresham Barrett to concede the runoff before it begins. To me, the fact that the national GOP Governors association feels it needs to do this makes Haley look weaker.
South Dakota -
Gordon Howie was defeated in his attempt to win the Republican nomination for Governor
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Moreover, there was generally nothing in the turnouts that suggested that Republicans were more energized than normal. All but one states that had more registered Republicans had their typical advantage in amount of voters in the Republican nomination contests versus the Democratic nomination contests for the same office.
If there is a state where the GOP nomination seemed to be tea party dominated it is Nevada. All tea party candidates in Nevada seem to have won their contests. Nevada Republicans also seemed to have a much higher turnout than normal versus the Democrats. Democrats in Nevada may have their work cut out for them this November.
A few incumbents did lose their bids for reelection, but most of them were Republicans. The two Democratic races I had my eye on as a bell-weather for anti-incumbent sentiment ended with both of the incumbents winning. Those were Senator Blanche Lincoln in Arkansas and Representative Jane Harman in California's 36th congressional district.
All of this suggests that this November is probably not going to be quite as difficult for Democrats as has been predicted. There are certainly challenges for Democrats but there is not going to be this unstoppable force that sweeps Democrats from office. 2010 will be more of a 1978 not a 1994. The Democrats success with improving the jobs situation will probably play a large factor in the elections. If they can keep up the trend shown in the various "bikini graphs" out there, the Democrats may actually win a few seats in November.
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