What Tuesday’s primary election results tell us about the tea party

Establishment Republicans easily defeated tea party candidates in key primary elections Tuesday night, hinting that the tea party is no longer having the same electoral success it once had.

Perhaps the biggest victory for the Republican establishment came in Kentucky where Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell won by a landslide against his tea party challenger Matt Bevin. With nearly all precincts reporting, McConnell led Bevin 60 percent to 36 percent.

Two other high-profile contests against tea party challengers took place in Idaho and Georgia. Rep. Mike Simpson triumphed easily over his primary challenger Bryan Smith in Idaho. In Georgia, two establishment Republicans received the highest number of votes, defeating three conservative candidates. The two will now compete in a run-off election.

Primary elections were also held Tuesday in Arkansas, Oregon and Pennsylvania.

SEE ALSO: Support for the tea party plummets

As Elaine Kamarck from the Bookings Institution pointed out, the Republican Party “has drawn a very large number of challengers this year compared to the less conflicted Democrats.” She calculated that 41 percent of House Republican incumbents were facing primary challengers, compared to 26 percent of House Democrats. She also found that the vast majority of Republican primary challengers identified themselves with the tea party.

“But the final metric of the primaries to date is whether or not the House Tea Party candidates are winning,” Kamarck stated Tuesday. “The verdict: incumbent Republicans are holding their own.”

She also noted one of the only Republican incumbents who has failed to win his primary outright is Rep. Ralph Hall of Texas, who at 91 years old is the oldest person to ever serve in the House. He faces a run-off election on May 27 against tea party challenger John Ratcliffe.

The tea party remains influential

As Tuesday’s primary elections show, the tea party is not having the same electoral success it had in 2010. And over the years, less tea party candidates have been winning elections.

Nonetheless, the tea party has remained an influential force within the GOP. It has been most successful in influencing Republicans to move further to the right.

Last year, tea party aligned members of Congress were also influential in swaying House Republicans to bring up a temporary spending bill that included provisions to dismantle the Affordable Care Act. The bill failed to pass and resulted in a 16-day partial government shutdown.

Ever since that incident, tea party House members have taken a lot of the blame for shutting down the government. The incident also fueled business groups to support Republican establishment candidates in the primaries.

SEE ALSO: The Tea Party sparks Republican civil war

But instead of gloating about their victories Tuesday, Republicans called for unity. In his victory speech Tuesday night, McConnell made an attempt to reach out to Bevin’s tea party supporters by telling them “your fight is my fight.”

“The tough race is behind us. It’s time to unite,” McConnell said Tuesday night. “To my opponent’s supporters, I hope you will join me in the months ahead and know that your fight is my fight.”

House Speaker John Boehner, who himself cruised to victory over a tea party primary challenge in early May, also didn’t gloat about the GOP victories over the tea party. Rather than criticize the tea part like he has done in the past, he told reporters Tuesday that the tea party had “brought great energy to our political process.”

“There’s not that big a difference between what you all call the tea party and your average conservative Republican,” he said. “We’re against Obamacare, we think taxes are too high, we think the government’s too big.”

SEE ALSO: Tea party and conservative leaders push for immigration reform