The Primary Primer: In Tennessee, the Tea Party’s Last Stand

abc ^ | August 7, 2014 | Shushannah Walshe

[don-o]

Today, in Tennessee, the tea party has its last-best chance to beat an incumbent senator in a race that’s a marquee match-up with the GOP establishment. After millions of dollars, the tea party failed to topple incumbent senators in Kentucky, South Carolina, Mississippi, and most recently earlier this week in Kansas. If Tennessee Sen. Lamar Alexander beats back his tea party challenger state Rep. Joe Carr, this will be the first cycle since 2008 when no incumbent GOP Senator has lost a re-nomination fight.

snip

FiveThirtyEight’s Take: Polling Past polling in Tennessee primaries has not been terribly accurate. Errors of five points or greater occurred regularly in the 2006 senatorial primary, 2008 presidential primary, 2010 gubernatorial primary, and 2012 presidential primary. The chance for a surprising result, either a blowout or Carr winning, should not be discounted.

[dirtboy]

I swear, the MSM declares the Tea Party dead more times than Bones McCoy.

[Coldwater Creek]

Divided vote happens all of the time from county to state to national. I would like to think that Republicans are smarter than to do this over and over.

[Innovative]

“Foolish words, pre-election. The next stand could very well be in Nov. when the old GOPe fossils, who won by trashing TEA Party conservatives, go down to defeat because the maligned conservatives stayed home.

Romney isn’t president because four million conservatives stayed home in 2012. You’d think the GOPe would have learned something.”

Yes, something to be proud of — conservatives reelected Obama and Reid as majority leader in the Senate! And now you want to make sure the Dems maintain control of the Senate.

[backwoods-engineer]

"the tea party failed..."

As if it's a monolithic, national collective. No, that's what the Democrat/Communists do.