Tea for two: Conservatives score victories in closely watched primaries

Where’s your empire now? [Read in appropriate Edward G. Robinson voice]

Recall when pundits were declaring the Republican establishment resurgent against the tea party insurgents? (This space had a slightly more complicated take on GOP incumbents running the table in Indiana, North Carolina and Ohio last Tuesday.) What a difference a week makes.

Tea-party-aligned candidates cruised (or maybe that should be “Cruz-ed”) to victory last night in a pair of races that were again being pegged as bellwethers for future primaries and November prospects.

In Nebraska, Ben Sasse comfortably thumped both an establishment-backed former state treasurer, Shane Osborn, and a self-funding bank executive, Sid Dinsdale, to get the Republican nod to fill the seat of retiring GOP Senator Mike Johanns. Sasse got campaign help from T.P. darlings Sarah Palin and Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, as well as Koch-funded FreedomWorks and the anti-tax-obsessed Club for Growth.

Nebraska tends to favor Republicans at the statewide level, and Sasse is expected to beat last night’s Democratic winner, Dave Domina, in November

In West Virginia, a crowded field was vying to fill the seat held by Rep. Shelley Moore Capito, who herself won the GOP nomination for the open Senate contest to replace retiring Democrat Jay Rockefeller. The winner in this House district, which cuts clear across the middle of the state from east to west, was Alex Mooney, the former Maryland GOP chairman who moved to West Virginia and ran with strong conservative support. The Senate Conservatives Fund, a group that favors tea party-esque challenges to establishment Republicans, poured nearly $100,000 into Mooney’s effort.

Mooney will face former West Virginia Democratic Party chairman Nick Casey in November. Capito will square off against Democrat Natalie Tennant, West Virginia’s Secretary of State, assuring a woman will represent the state in the Senate for the first time come next Congress.

So, where does this leave GOP identity? Is it time for poll-watchers to declare the establishment in retreat? (Or how about in “disarray?” There are always “Democrats in disarray” stories — is it just poor alliteration that keeps that word from attaching to Republicans?) Is this a victory of ideology … or is it a victory for money?

First note that Sasse has already pledged his support to Senate minority leader and establishment cornerstone Mitch McConnell (who faces a tea party challenge of his own in the Kentucky primary). And, as mentioned, Mooney was a party chair, even if it was in a different state (are carpetbaggers by definition insurgents, or just the opposite?).

Beyond a love of party, both men, as detailed above, know how to raise a buck. Mooney substantially outspent his competition in West Virginia. And in Nebraska, where Sasse tapped into some deep pockets to fuel his run, the runner up turned out to be the banker, Dinsdale, who surprised with his late surge … which maybe shouldn’t have been that surprising, since Dinsdale dumped millions into what turned out to be the highest-priced election in state history.

Or perhaps there is another way to look at this: One of the oldest saws in political prognostication — all politics is local. Is it possible that the dynamics in Nebraska and West Virginia — the demographics, the economy, the current ruling regimes — were different than they were in the three state races from the week before?

There is much digging to be done (in other words, more than time or space will allow here), but here is one measure that says yes, if counter-intuitively so: The state unemployment rates in Indiana, Ohio and North Carolina (last Tuesday’s contests) are all substantially higher than the rates in Nebraska and West Virginia.

Just something to consider for next week’s spate of political prognostications. 

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