Thom Tillis and his wife, Susan, celebrate in Charlotte, N.C., on May 6, 2014, after he won the Republican nomination over Greg Brannon and Mark Harris for the U.S. Senate.DIEDRA LAIRD/The Associated Press
The Republican establishment is on its way to regaining control of its party.
A fellow called Thom Tillis will stand against Democratic incumbent North Carolina senator Kay Hagan in November's midterm elections, which is exactly what Republican stalwarts such as Mitt Romney and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce wanted.
Mr. Tillis, currently the state House speaker, won his party's nomination Tuesday night with 46 per cent of the vote, substantially more than the 40 per cent he needed to avoid a runoff against candidates backed by various Tea Party and evangelical Christian groups.
The reason we care if the Republican establishment regains control of its party is because its ability to do so could shape the chapter of Barack Obama's historic presidency. The establishment – party elders, lobbyists, big-money donors – tends to care more about winning elections than falling on the sword of principle. If the Republicans field a slate of electable candidates in midterm elections this autumn, they stand a better-than-decent chance of winning a majority in the Senate. With the House of Representatives safely in Speaker John Boehner's control, Mr. Obama is facing the very real prospect of serving out his final two years with Congress united against him.
For a couple of election cycles, the Tea Party has undermined the Republican Party's efforts to regain the upper hand in Washington by beating relatively moderate incumbents in primary contests. This year, the establishment has made a concerted effort to fight back, plowing the money and resources into primary battles that it used to leave in reserve for election battles with their Democratic foes. Mr. Tillis's victory follows Texas senator John Cornyn's defeat of a Tea Party challenger earlier this year. Momentum is on the establishment's side.
North Carolina was a far more important win than Texas, where any Republican, no matter how extreme, is pretty much assured victory in a statewide vote. North Carolina is a swing state. It also is one of six that will determine who wins the Senate. Republicans need a net gain of the same number of seats to reclaim the majority.
It's not looking good for Mr. Obama. Most pundits and prognosticators say there is a better than 50 per cent chance that the Republican Party will win a majority in the Senate on Nov. 4, while no one thinks Mr. Boehner's majority in the House is in jeopardy. The Washington Post's election forecasting model calculates an 82-per-cent chance that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is poised for a promotion.
In the final days of the North Carolina campaign, Mr. Tillis won endorsements from the Chamber of Commerce; Mr. Romney, the Republican nominee for president in 2012; and Jeb Bush, the former Florida governor who may attempt to carry on the family tradition and compete for president in 2016.
Mr. Tillis raised $3.2-million (U.S.), more than twice as much as his closest challenger, Greg Brannon, a medical doctor who never had run for public office.
Mr. Brannon's loss is a blow to Rand Paul, the Tea Party favourite who, like Mr. Bush, is considering running for president in 2016. Mr. Paul, the junior senator from Kentucky, flew to Charlotte, North Carolina, to stump for Mr. Brannon on Monday, calling on the assembled crowd to send a "dragon slayer" to Washington to help him fight "Leviathan," according to an account of the appearance in Politico. To the extent that the North Carolina primary was a proxy for 2016, Mr. Bush came out ahead.
On paper, the differences between Mr. Tillis and Mr. Brannon are small. Mr. Tillis describes himself as coming from a "working class" family, while Mr. Brannon and his brother were raised by a single mother. Both are family men who achieved professional success. Both say they hate Obamacare.
The difference is electability. In the past, Mr. Brannon has compared food stamps to slavery, indicated that he thinks the Sept. 11 attacks were an inside job and questioned the primacy of Supreme Court decisions. Those are the kinds of things that raise questions in the minds of voters with milder dispositions than Mr. Brannon's Tea Party supporters.
In a contest where every state counts, a Brannon candidacy was too big a risk to take. Of the half-dozen senate races that are worth watching, only three or four are true toss-ups.
Democratic Senate seats in West Virginia, Montana, and South Dakota are widely expected to flip. There is an open race in Michigan that will likely be won by the Democratic candidate, and Mark Udall, the Democratic incumbent in Colorado, probably will be re-elected.
Similarly, Republicans will likely win an open senate seat in Georgia, and Mr. McConnell – who has already raised more than $10-million (U.S) since the start of 2013, according to Sunlight Foundation – is seen withstanding strong challenges from the Tea Party and a popular Democratic candidate.
Races in Arkansas, Alaska, Louisiana, and North Carolina are too close to call. All four are traditionally Republican states, yet all four incumbents happen to be Democrats.
And that's why people are watching the midterms. Unlike the 2012 presidential election, which Mr. Obama won easily, there is a real contest for control of the senate.
With North Carolina over, attention will shift to primaries in Kentucky and Georgia on May 20. Mr. McConnell wants to crush his Tea Party opponent, a local businessman called Matt Bevin, to show he can unite the party. That explains why he has raised so much money.
There are only three other senators who have raised more than $10-million since Jan. 1, 2013: all three are incumbent Democrats who are seeking re-election this year, including Ms. Hagan in North Carolina.
The Republican establishment won an in-house victory. There still is a real election to fight.