But after three years in office and an election season looming, a number of GOP Congressmen find themselves facing scrappy challengers who say that they are now the ones with a serious case of Potomac Fever.

“I didn’t expect Renee to go this route,” said Frank Roche, a conservative Internet talk show host, who is challenging Renee Ellmers in North Carolina’s Second Congressional District. “I am sad she did. Unfortunately she has chosen to go along with the establishment in Washington D. C.”

Ellmers was a nurse and a Tea Party favorite when she emerged out of a crowded field in 2010, and went on to eke out a win against the Democratic incumbent. Then, she harped on the building of the so-called Ground Zero Mosque in New York in her campaign speeches, compared President Obama to Louis XIV and said that his administration is establishing a “socialistic form of government.”

Even in 2012, Roche counted himself as a supporter. But her backing of immigration reform convinced Roche to throw his own hat into the ring.