As voters in Tennessee go to the polls for the Volunteer State's unique Thursday primary elections, Tea Party backers are hoping they can find a way to oust veteran Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) as the GOP Establishment tries again to fend off a high profile U.S. Senate challenger in 2014.
So far this year, Tea Party challengers have been unable to knock off a series of veteran GOP Senators; earlier this week, Sen. Pat Roberts (R-KS) became the latest Republican to give the Tea Party a primary day stiff arm, as Roberts limped to victory over Milton Wolf in Kansas.
With all of the talk about voters wanting major change in the Congress, only three incumbents have been defeated for re-election this year, all of them on the Republican side. The losers include:
+ Rep. Ralph Hall (R-TX), who is the oldest member of the Congress
+ Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA), the House Majority Leader
+ Rep. Kerry Bentivolio (R-MI), a Tea Party lawmaker who ran a less than stellar re-election campaign
Will Tennessee add anything to that equation?
One thing working against the possibility of upsets is that Tennessee does not have a runoff, so any incumbent running in a race with more than a two person field can survive with less than a majority, as Sen. Roberts did this week in Kansas.
And that could be the case in the Volunteer State, where Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) faces six GOP opponents.
Much of the Tea Party focus has gone for Joe Carr, a member of the Tennessee legislature; but Carr doesn't have the field to himself, as a doctor named George Flinn has self-funded his campaign to the tune of almost $2 million for the race against Alexander.
Even if Flinn gets 5 percent of the vote, that could be enough to keep Carr's numbers down, and make it easier for Alexander to emerge the winner.
As for Congressional races in Tennessee, of the nine U.S. House members running for re-election, eight have primary opposition, and some deserve a quick thumbnail:
+ Rep. Scott DesJarlais (R-TN) has been mired in trouble for much of the two terms he's been in Congress; he faces six other Republicans led by state Senator Jim Tracy, who has outspent DesJarlais. Many wonder if DesJarlais is about to join the list of lawmakers being defeated in a primary.
+ Rep. Chuck Fleischmann (R-TN) faces the son of former Congressman Zach Wamp, as Weston Wamp has aggressively tried to get his family back into the House of Representatives. The battleground is a bizarrely shaped district that runs from Chattanooga in the south and all the way to the Kentucky border to the northwest of Knoxville.
+ Every two years, someone wonders whether Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN) will hold on to his majority-minority district based in Memphis; his main challenger is Ricky Wilkins, an African American attorney. There are only three candidates in this race, so if Wilkins can make a real run, he could theoretically have a better chance to push Cohen out the door.
+ Rep. John Duncan (R-TN) is one of the quieter lawmakers around in Congress; he's bidding for a 14th term in the House but has drawn a challenge from businessman Jason Zachary in a district that encompasses all of Knoxville. Duncan has the advantage in money, but it's one of those races that makes me wonder, just sort of like the under-the-radar challenge that Rep. Tim Huelskamp (R-KS) got in Kansas earlier this week.
After Tennessee, there are 13 other states still to hold primaries for the 2014 elections - Hawaii is next on Saturday.
As for why Tennessee holds its primaries on a Thursday - it's been that way since the beginning.
The original Constitution for the state of Tennessee has this in section 5 of the document:
"The first election for senators and representatives shall commence on the second Thursday of March next, and shall continue for that and the succeeding day, and the next election shall commence on the first Thursday of August, 1797, and shall continue on that and the succeeding day; and forever after election shall be held once in two years, commencing on the first Thursday in August and terminating the succeeding day."
And now you know the rest of the story....
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