By Sean Sullivan and Roberta Costa
The establishment wing of the Republican Party scored a major victory in North Carolina Tuesday when state House Speaker Thom Tillis won the partys nomination for U.S. Senate turning back tea party challengers who threatened to complicate the GOPs effort to unseat Sen. Kay Hagan (D-N.C.) in a key midterm battleground.
The party has triangulated pretty well so far and this was the first test said Michael Steele a former Republican National Committee chairman. Tillis and his people have worked hard to control how this plays out. But they have to be careful to not rub the bases nose in their success.
Tilliss ability to gallop ahead late in the race in spite of the steep competition he faced on his right signals that the Republican establishment may be better poised than previously thought to push through its favored candidates in Senate primaries later this month in Georgia and Kentucky where Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell faces Matt Bevin a tea party challenger.
McConnell who headlined fundraisers for Tillis leads by a significant margin in the polls and has benefited from Bevins stumbles which include a stop at a rally for legalized cockfighting an appearance McConnells campaign has lampooned.
In Georgia Jack Kingston a 10-term Republican congressman and a powerful appropriator has also seen his campaign blessed by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other mainstream Republican groups and he has since climbed to near the top of the polls lagging slightly behind wealthy businessman David Perdue according to an April automated survey.
The rest of the field filled mostly with tea party favorites such as Rep. Paul Broun who once said President Obama upholds the Soviet constitution has struggled to combat the financial heft of the leading pair.
By winning more than 40 percent of the Republican vote Tillis avoided having to endure a primary runoff election. Now he can focus his attention on Hagan a top target of national Republicans looking to net the six seats they need to pick up the Senate majority this fall.
