PRIMARIES BOLSTERING GOP – AT 10:56 A.M. ET:  At least that's what a number of pundits seem to be saying this morning, after last night's primary results.  From WaPo: 

Republicans’ hopes of taking back the Senate received a big boost in primary elections Tuesday, with Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) easily winning and other candidates favored by the party establishment beating back tea party challengers.

After years of intraparty turmoil that cost Republicans key races, voters this year are coalescing around the GOP’s strongest candidates ahead of November’s general election, when control of the Senate during President Obama’s final two years in office will be up for grabs.

On Tuesday, the most consequential day of voting so far this year, Democrats were left disappointed. GOP Senate candidates prone to making controversial statements lost to better-financed, more disciplined rivals with the potential to capitalize on Obama’s unpopularity and the troubles with his signature health-care law.

Nowhere was this more evident than in Kentucky and Georgia, the only two states where Democrats think they can win Senate seats held by Republicans. Democrats had hoped McConnell would emerge from the primary campaign badly bruised, if not defeated, but he prevailed Tuesday largely unscathed and conservative groups quickly called for party unity.

And in Georgia, Democrats were banking on Republicans nominating a candidate so far to the right that he or she would alienate suburban centrist voters. But the two contenders considered to have the broadest general-election viability — businessman David Perdue and Rep. Jack Kingston — advanced to a July 22 runoff, complicating Democrat Michelle Nunn’s path to victory.

Upcoming primary elections are likely to yield similar results. The tea party’s best and perhaps only remaining chance for an upset is in Mississippi, where support for Sen. Thad Cochran seems shaky, although his conservative challenger, state Sen. Chris McDaniel, has stumbled.

COMMENT:  The GOP is getting more professional, and its base more discerning.  But the party still has to fight as if it's 20 points behind.  None of these races will be easy.  Democrats do not fight like gentlemen, and they have the media behind them. 

May 21, 2014