Did the Tea Party Hurt the Republicans in the Senate?

Conventional wisdom is that the tea party candidates cost the GOP at least 3 senate seats because they were weaker. There’s no way to know what would’ve happened in Colorado or Nevada, but Delaware would’ve likely flipped. Mike Castle was an unusual candidate. How would Christine O’Donnell have compared to anyone else?

I decided to compare the states that had similar 2008 Presidential spreads.


With Joe Miller we know that Lisa Murkowski was the better candidate since she beat him and the Democratic candidate. Mike Lee didn’t exceed John McCain’s 29 point 2008 margin, but exceeding that wouldn’t have been easy. John Boozman and David Vitter didn’t do any better. I doubt Bob Bennett would’ve been a better candidate. Of course they would’ve won this regardless.

Kentucky, Kansas, and West Virginia all had similar 2008 spreads. Jerry Moran won in a landslide, while Rand Paul won by a smaller margin and John Raese lost. There’s hardly enough data here to make a judgment, especially since Paul and Raese had serious challengers, and West Virginia is a far tougher state for a senate race than a Presidential one.

The last group doesn’t have a tea party candidate. They all won in lopsided races.

Marco Rubio is considered a tea party candidate, although his background as Florida Speaker of the House hardly makes him an outsider. He had a larger margin of victory than any other Republican in a similar state.


The next six states were somewhat more one sided for the Democrats in 2008. Charles Grassley was an incumbent, so he’s not a good comparison. Kelly Ayotte was an establishment candidate and her spread was next best. Ron Johnson and Pat Toomey, both considered tea party candidates, did very well. Ken Buck and Sharron Angle did a lot better than McCain, but were the worst of the group.

The last group were Obama landslide states. Tea Party favorite Christine O’Donnell exceeded McCain by 8 points, a total better than many of these candidates. Mark Kirk, an establishment moderate, fared best, while Dino Rossi did well too. Most of the rest couldn’t be considered establishment or tea party, although Carly Fiorina and Linda McMahon got the nod over a tea party candidate and a more establishment one.

It’s impossible to say definitively how the tea party candidates did, since the circumstances of individual races was a big factor. In most cases the establishment candidate raised more money and in some had a weak challenger. For the most part, however, the tea party candidates fared worse than the establishment candidates. So there’s likely some credence to the argument the tea party candidates hurt the GOP.