Christine O'Donnell's Victory in Delaware Shifts Senate Expectations

In the biggest upset of the tumultuous 2010 primary season, the small state of Delaware abruptly changed from red to blue on prognosticators' maps last week, undercutting chances for a blue-to-red switch in Senate control in November. For Republicans, Delaware has become both a party portent and an example of how a national wave of anger can be a blessing and a curse.

Last Tuesday, Delaware voters handed defeat to moderate GOP Rep. Mike Castle, a 30-year statewide officeholder. In doing so, most experts say, those voters delivered victory to their foes across the aisle by nominating an unelectable candidate, activist Christine O'Donnell. Castle is the eighth GOP establishment pick for Senate to succumb to an insurgent or Tea Party-favored candidate this year.

Now, with just six weeks remaining until the general election in November, experts say that the Republican establishment will have to find a way to embrace these grassroots groups and appease their growing demands for conservative orthodoxy.

Just over a year ago, Tea Partyers announced their presence at town hall meetings. Few political onlookers took the uproar seriously, brushing off the anger as a summer trend, or a passing response to the pending healthcare legislation. Since then, the Tea Party movement has made itself heard in Washington on a number of issues, becoming central to the political narrative of the midterm elections.

Indeed, experienced politicians have learned the hard way this primary season that constituents want little to do with business-as-usual practices in Washington. Douglas Holtz-Eakin, president of the American Action Forum, a Republican policy institute, calls the Tea Party phenomenon the end of an era of disconnect in politics, when voters would voice concerns over big-government spending but nonetheless elect officials who brought significant amounts of federal funding back to their state. "People would talk the talk about fiscal responsibility and budgetary policy but wanted their incumbents to bring back the money," he says. "We're not seeing that this year."

In the last year, the floundering economy has diminished the popularity of those in power, particularly Democrats, stoking the Tea Party groups' enthusiastic discontent. That fervor helped elevate a number of previously unknown conservative candidates to primary success, but it also created a potentially damaging rift on the political right.

"Is the national GOP going to look at this as an effort to take over the House and the Senate and embrace these folks?" asks Sam Hoff, political science professor at the University of Delaware, about the Tea Party movement. "Or are they going to look at it as an insurgency which they either have to ignore or try to stomp out?"

Riding on pleas from middle-class Americans for less spending and smaller government, the movement has pushed the GOP further to the right, defeating moderates such as Castle and Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who lost her primary in late August. According to Hoff, the recent GOP Senate primary results show the risk the establishment runs by not catering to voters on the conservative edge. "It's sort of like a parasite on a host," he says. "As long as it benefits both, then the host doesn't mind the parasite. But if the host gets to be too adverse, then the parasite kills the host."

The infighting among Republicans has created tension between Tea Party outsiders and the party's establishment. The divide was made especially clear in Delaware. Before the primary election, state GOP party head Tom Ross continually spoke out against O'Donnell, once saying that she "could not be elected dogcatcher." Ross finally endorsed her Thursday. However, Castle still refuses to endorse his primary opponent, citing "personal smears" she used against him during the campaign. The same is true in Alaska, where Murkowski has not endorsed primary winner Joe Miller and instead has launched a write-in campaign for re-election. Nevertheless, national party leaders, like Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, say they will back the former outsiders going into the general election.