Is the Tea Party Over?

North Carolina Speaker Thom Tillis (R-NC)

The month of May is filled with a number of important primaries, including several that will happen tonight in North Carolina, Indiana, and Ohio.  Polling shows that in North Carolina, in particular, the Republicans could be in for a slew of runoffs in Senate and House races.  However, the question has started to become whether or not the Tea Party, in the course of the next month, could be put to a miserable death.

Now, don’t get me wrong, the Tea Party voters are still there, and will continue to cause headaches for the GOP, but it’s hard to look at this year’s calendar and not see that they are waning, if not outright failing.  Despite high(-ish) profile races against major incumbent senators, challenges to Pat Roberts, Mitch McConnell, John Cornyn, Lindsey Graham, and (increasingly) Thad Cochran all seem to have been wastes of money.  The men that challenged these senators did not hurt for free press, but they couldn’t muster enough money or support to legitimately compete.

This is also the case against incumbent House members.  Rep. Mike Simpson, who is running in one of the most buzzed about primaries in the country against attorney Bryan Smith, has received major support from establishment groups like the Chamber of Commerce, and looks more than likely to win the nomination.  Challenges to open seats such as the West Virginia Senate race, where establishment pick Shelley Moore Capito seemed a prime Tea Party target, never materialized, and there’s a decent chance that Georgia will skip all three of the hard-right conservative congressmen running for the open Senate seat.

Granted, Tea Party candidates could still make some impact.  Curt Clawson beat out the establishment candidate in the Florida special election to replace Trey Radel, and races in states like Oklahoma or New Jersey could result in a hard right conservative, but it’s worth noting, particularly as we start to gage who will win the Republican nomination in 2016 that the Tea Party is waning in support.

Part of the reason for this is the quality of the candidates.  Much ink has been written about Sharron Angle, Christine O’Donnell, and Ken Buck, but the reality is that there were a number of major Tea Party success stories: Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, and Marco Rubio are amongst them.  But none of these men (save perhaps Cruz) “came out of nowhere” to win their seat.  Rubio was a longtime Republican politician and former Speaker of the Florida House of Representatives.  Rand Paul is the son of a former congressman and major figure in the Tea Party movement.  I think the media got mystified by the likes of someone like now-Rep. Ted Yoho (who truly came out of nowhere to defeat Cliff Stearns two years ago), but he is very much the exception.  Most successful members of the Tea Party had some government experience or were already sitting members of Congress.  With very few exceptions (Steve Stockman in Texas and Chris McDaniel in Mississippi) almost none of the challengers running this year have successful elective experience and have proven themselves on the campaign trail.

And if the Tea Party is dead, that makes the 2016 race a very different ball game.  Names like Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, and Paul Ryan rise to the top of the heap, as they have strong support from the establishment and the country club Republicans, whereas people like Ted Cruz and Rand Paul fade pretty steadily into the background.

Will this be the end of the Tea Party?  The best way to tell will be to watch North Carolina tonight-if Thom Tillis, establishment candidate and the NRSC’s preferred choice, manages to avoid a runoff, it could be the beginning of the end for the movement  Stay tuned…