June 8 Primary: Tea Party has Minimal Impact and More

Voters voting - Photo by F Delventhal* on Flickr by F Delventhal*

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 8^th. 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 -

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