LAMAR TRIUMPHS – AT 11:09 A.M. ET:  Veteran Republican Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee has defeated his Tea Party primary opponent and will have the Republican nomination when he runs for a new term in November.  From ABC:

Incumbent Tennessee Sen. Lamar Alexander won his primary tonight, defeating tea party challenger state Rep. Joe Carr in the Republican primary. With 100 percent of precincts reporting, Alexander bested Carr 49.7 percent to 40.5 percent, according to the Associated Press. This was a tighter than expected final outcome. Self-funding candidate and Memphis radio station owner George Flinn came in with 5.2 percent and there were four other lesser-known challengers.

This race marked the tea party’s last best chance to beat an incumbent senator and with Alexander’s victory, it marks the end of months of trying, as well as millions of dollars spent, to oust a sitting senator by an insurgent intra-party challenger. They tried in Kentucky, Texas, South Carolina, Mississippi, and earlier this week in Kansas, but came up short each time.

Despite the effort and dollars spent, this will be the first cycle since 2008 when no incumbent GOP senator has lost a re-nomination fight. Unlike many of those other races, this one didn’t get the support of several outside conservative groups like the Senate Conservatives Fund, which pledged to toss out incumbent senators in other races but were unsuccessful.

COMMENT:  Now the Tea Party should unite behind the Republican candidates, show that it is a team player, and that it wants to be an asset, not a spoiler.  It can come back to fight another day, but only if it doesn't damage Republicans in their fight against Democrats.

August 8, 2014