Tea Partiers target Delaware Senate race

An O’Donnell win would energize Democrats and essentially ensure Democratic candidate Chris Coons would win the general election,  according to Sabato.

“This is one of the rare cases this cycle when a primary could literally throw away a Senate seat,” Sabato explained.

Sabato plans to move the race to leans Democratic or likely Democratic in his “Crystal Ball” ratings if O’Donnell wins the primary and keep it in the likely Republican or leans Republican category if Castle holds on.

“Republicans look at it this way,” Sabato said. “With Castle, they know they’ll get about 70 percent of his votes [in the Senate]  ̶  with the Democrat, they’ll get zero.”

O’Donnell has previously had trouble gaining backing from groups such as the Susan B. Anthony List, which supports pro-life candidates around the country, but this time the group is giving her another look.

“Right now we have a very different environment, and everything we have thought can’t be done is happening all over the place,” said Susan B. Anthony List Chairwoman and President Marjorie Dannenfelser.  “And she has had a lot of national attention coming her way, and I don’t put her anymore in the impossible category.”

However, Dannenfelser said her organization has not decided whether or not to contribute financially to O’Donnell’s campaign.

Castle’s campaign has seized on News Journal reports about O’Donnell’s finances to fight back against the insurgent candidate. These reports show that O’Donnell sold her house to her campaign lawyer in 2008 to avoid action from her mortgage holder, and that she uses campaign funds to pay half her rent because her townhome doubles as her campaign office. The reports also suggest she owes over $11,000 in back taxes to the IRS.

“Castle for Senate is running a series of ads to highlight why voters across Delaware trust Mike Castle’s record of fiscal responsibility and to notify voters of factual information about his opponent, as reported in our local news,” Castle campaign spokeswoman Kate Dickens said in an e-mailed statement to The Daily Caller.

The state GOP has likewise attacked O’Donnell for recently revealing that Fairleigh Dickinson University had awarded her a bachelors degree this past week in spite of the fact her 2006 campaign website listed her as a graduate of the university.

“Christine O’Donnell keeps demanding a debate. The debate I would like to see is Christine O’Donnell versus the facts. She’s said so many different things … I’m not sure Christine even knows what the truth is anymore,” Ross said in an interview with Politico.

Tea Party Express is not deterred by these revelations.

“All these attacks against Christine are all personal with very little in substance as far as her positions,” Russell said. “The only response I have is to direct people to what she says on her own website.”

O’Donnell’s electability and integrity problems, however, have caused other conservatives to withhold support from her. RedState.com founder Erick Erickson, for instance, has said that conservatives should “pull the plug” on the effort to dump Castle.