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.
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