The Tea Party Isn’t Over

Silver finds that incumbent Republicans still have plenty of reason to worry about primary challengers:

Between 2004 and 2008, just four of 39 Republican senators running for renomination, or 10 percent of them, got less than 65 percent of the primary vote. This year, five of 10 have fallen below that threshold: not only Roberts, Cochran and McConnell, but also Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and John Cornyn of Texas, who both benefited from running against divided fields.

In fact, the average share of the primary vote received by Republican incumbent senators so far this year is 73 percent. Not only is that lower than 2004 through 2008, when incumbents averaged 89 percent of the vote — it’s also lower than 2010 and 2012, the years when the tea party was supposedly in ascendency, when GOP incumbents got an average of 78 percent.

He concludes that “there’s no evidence the threat from primary challenges has been reduced going forward. It may even still be increasing.” Bernstein isn’t so sure about that:

Think about general elections in districts dominated by one party. Sometimes, the out-party won’t even bother fielding a candidate, and the incumbent will receive 100 percent of the two-party vote. Other times, a certain loser can be found to at least show the flag. Depending on the district, that hopeless candidate might be destined for, say, 30 to 40 percent of the vote. If a systematic change takes place that makes it far more likely for hopeless losers to file in those districts, the average incumbent margin of victory is going to be much lower — but the chances of incumbent victory won’t change.

That might be what’s happening in Senate primaries. Whether it’s campaign finance, or institutional changes within the Republican Party, or some other change, it’s possible that it’s easier to enter races for hopeless losers who nonetheless are capable of running something resembling a real campaign, and therefore of winning a solid share of the primary vote. Without, in fact, making it any more likely that incumbents will lose.

But Waldman asserts that the “Tea Party wins when it wins, and it wins when it loses”:

That’s the magic of an insurgent movement like the Tea Party. A win strengthens it by showing its members that victories are possible if they fight hard enough. And because the movement has organized itself around the idea of establishment Republican betrayal, its losses only further prove that it’s doing the right thing. Furthermore, if ordinary Republicans have to become Tea Partiers to beat Tea Partiers (even if only for a while), the movement’s influence is greater, not less.