Great job tonight by the Tea Party.
O'Donnell taking out the trash in DE, in NY, Paladino taking out the RINO Lazio, same in NH.
I guess Palin wins big again, all to 240's dismay.
Great job indeed, Tea Baggers!
September 15, 2010
G.O.P. Leaders Say Delaware Upset Hurts Senate HopesBy JEFF ZELENY
The Tea Party movement scored another victory on Tuesday, helping to propel a dissident Republican, Christine O’Donnell, to an upset win over Representative Michael N. Castle in the race for the United States Senate nomination in Delaware.
Mr. Castle, a moderate who served two terms as governor and had been reliably winning elections for the last four decades, became the latest establishment Republican casualty. Republican leaders, who had actively opposed Ms. O’Donnell, said the outcome complicated the party’s chances of winning control of the Senate.
With all precincts reporting, Ms. O’Donnell won 53 percent of the vote to Mr. Castle’s 47 percent. The primary drew 57,000 voters, a small slice of the overall electorate.
Ms. O’Donnell, a former abstinence counselor who had failed in previous attempts to win office in Delaware, won the endorsement of Sarah Palin, Senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina and other leaders of the party’s conservative wing.
“A lot of people said we can’t win the general election; yes we can!” Ms. O’Donnell said. “It will be hard work, but we can win if those same people who fought against me work just as hard for me.”
The results on the last big night of primaries highlighted the extent to which the Tea Party movement has upended the Republican Party and underscored the volatility of the electorate seven weeks from Election Day.
In New Hampshire, another candidate with strong backing from grass-roots conservatives, Ovide Lamontagne, was narrowly behind his main opponent, Kelly Ayotte, in the Republican primary for Senate Wednesday morning.
“In the interest of making sure all the votes are counted,” Mr. Lamontagne told supporters at a rally after midnight, “we’re going to continue to wait this out.” In Delaware, Ms. O’Donnell’s victory touched off a new round of recriminations among Republicans over the direction of their party, raising the question of whether there was still room for moderates and whether the drive for ideological purity would cost the party victories in November. The state and national Republican Party had mounted an aggressive campaign to defeat Ms. O’Donnell, but it fell short, with Mr. Castle unable to rely on independent voters who have long formed his base of support.
“The voters in the Republican primary have spoken, and I respect that decision,” Mr. Castle said, addressing crestfallen supporters who gathered in Wilmington. “I had a very nice speech prepared here, hoping I would win this race.”
In Maryland, former Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. won the Republican nomination for governor, positioning him for a rematch with Gov. Martin O’Malley, a Democrat who defeated him four years ago. Mr. Ehrlich defeated Brian Murphy, an investment executive, who was endorsed by Ms. Palin.
In Wisconsin, Scott Walker, the Milwaukee County executive, won the Republican nomination for governor. He defeated Mark Neumann, a former congressman, and will face Mayor Tom Barrett of Milwaukee, a Democrat, in November.
The contests on Tuesday night were the last big cluster in a seven-month string of primaries that will come to an end when Hawaii votes on Saturday and Louisiana holds a runoff early next month. Seven members of Congress had already been defeated in their bids for re-election.
In Delaware, O’Donnell supporters who gathered at an Elks lodge in Dover began chanting “Christine! Christine!” as returns began to trickle in and her lead steadily climbed. A little more than an hour after the polls closed, the race was called for Ms. O’Donnell.
In an interview, Ms. O’Donnell said she felt confident that she would have the support of Democrats and independents (neither group could vote in Delaware’s closed Republican primary). If elected in November, she said, she would “work to repeal the health care bill.”
Throughout the campaign, Ms. O’Donnell was dogged by reports — many of them generated by members of her own party — that she had trouble with personal finances, had fudged her educational history and was not fit for office. But Ms. O’Donnell continued to rebut, repudiate and push on, with a hefty dose of help from the Tea Party infrastructure and rank-and-file voters who were furious at Washington
“I think she’s going to make it,” said Marie Bush, a supporter of Ms. O’Donnell who went to her victory rally to cheer her on. “Too many people have been slinging mud at her, and she’s a survivor.”
Asked what the candidate might do to attract independents or even Democrats, Ms. Bush said, “I think people are smart enough now to know the world we are living in is going wrong and we need people like her to make it right.”
Republicans had been counting the Delaware seat, which was vacated by Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., as among those they believed they could use to reach a majority in the Senate. Party strategists said on Tuesday evening that they would assess the race this week, but that they would likely direct their money elsewhere — a sign that they believed that Ms. O’Donnell could not prevail in a general election. The Democratic nominee for the seat is Chris Coons, the county executive in New Castle County.
“There’s just a lot of nutty things she’s been saying that just simply don’t add up,” Karl Rove, the Republican strategist, said in a television interview on Fox News. “I’m for the Republican, but I’ve got to tell you, we were looking at eight to nine seats in the Senate. We’re now looking at seven to eight. In my opinion, this is not a race we’re going to be able to win.”
In New Hampshire, voters trickled into polling places for much of the day, with many precincts reporting average or lighter-than-expected turnout. Slow returns delayed the outcome, and the returns by Wednesday morning suggested the race was too close to call.
Mr. Lamontagne, 52, is a lawyer in Manchester who has French-Canadian roots and is deeply involved with the Catholic Church. He is a fiscal and social conservative who opposes same-sex marriage and abortion; Democrats have consistently labeled him as “too extreme” for New Hampshire. Over the course of the campaign, Mr. Lamontagne won straw polls at Tea Party events by large margins.
He ran for governor in 1996, defeating the more moderate party favorite in the Republican primary but losing to Jeanne Shaheen, a Democrat who was then a state senator, in the general election. Before that, Mr. Lamontagne served as chairman of the New Hampshire Board of Education for three years.
While Ms. Ayotte won Ms. Palin’s seal of approval, Mr. Lamontagne secured two other valuable endorsements: that of The Union Leader, a newspaper in Manchester, in late August, and that of Mr. DeMint days before the primary.
