Five 2010 Senate races to watch for Tea Party impact

Florida
Will he stay or will he go?

Everyday, it appears clearer that Florida Gov. Charlie Crist — who at the outset of the Florida senate race had the endorsement of the National Republican Senatorial Committee — will leave the race for Republican nomination, as all signs show Tea Party darling Marco Rubio to be unbeatable.

And as more establishment Republicans — including Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney and Eric Cantor — throw their support behind Rubio, it seems more and more likely that Crist will ditch the GOP and run as a independent.

The bottom line: If Crist runs as an independent, will Florida prove to be a NY-23 in the general election, where two battling conservative candidates allow the Democrat candidate to win? Rep. Kendrick Meek, the Democratic candidate, and opponents of the Tea Party movement, who say the movement will do more harm to Republicans than good, hope so.

Utah

The Utah Senate race is a prime example of how the Tea Partiers anti-incumbent sentiment is not exclusive to Democrats. Tea Partiers, including FreedomWorks PAC, have largely thrown their support behind Republican Mike Lee. The state’s nomination convention is set for May 8.

“Utah will decide on May 8 whether or not it will send back incumbent Sen. Bob Bennett who voted for the Wall Street bailout and introduced health-care legislation based on an individual mandate — one of the worst and least popular parts of the Obama health-care bill,” FreedomWorks’s Pappas said.

In March, according to a Utah’s Deseret News, only one in five delegates from Utah’s 2008 Republican convention were re-elected to May’s nominating convention, meaning about 80 percent of the convention’s delegates will be what the paper called “new blood” — not good news for Bennett.

“I mean, you had various groups out there like the Tea Party and the 9/12 and other groups that have been preparing for caucuses literally for months,” said Utah Republican Party Chairman Dave Hansen, Deseret News reported.

The bottom line: If Bennett loses the primary, it shows Republicans in name aren’t immune from Tea Partiers.

While most of the fireworks are in the upcoming Republican primaries, other general elections of note include Arkansas — where Tea Partiers in the very red state are targeting Democratic Sen. Blanche Lincoln — and Pennsylvania, where conservatives would love to knock off Sen. Arlen Specter, who left the GOP to become a Democrat, and replace him with the more conservative Pat Toomey.

Issac Wood, the House race editor for Dr. Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball campaign analysis Web site points out that after the primaries, so-called Tea Party candidates who don’t win could shake things up with independent or candidacies on the Tea Party ticket.

“There are months until the Independent filing deadlines in most states. I suspect you’ll see some ‘sore losers’ run on the Tea Party label if they lose the GOP primary. Rules vary by state though and are usually very constrictive on third parties and independents so it will be rare to see the words ‘Tea Party’ on the ballot,” said Wood.

What races, involving Tea Parties, are the most exciting to you? A list of House races to watch is next.

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