Paul wins GOP nod in Kentucky with tea party help; Specter falls behind in Pennsylvania

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Paul wins in Ky., Specter trails in Pennsylvania

WASHINGTON — Political novice Rand Paul rode support from tea party activists to a rout in Kentucky’s Republican Senate primary Tuesday night, jolting the GOP establishment. Democratic Sen. Arlen Specter fell behind in a struggle for political survival in Pennsylvania, a five-term incumbent offering experience to voters clamoring for change.

Another Democratic incumbent, Arkansas Sen. Blanche Lincoln, led narrowly in early returns in her race for nomination to a third term, but she risked being thrown into a run-off.

In a fourth race with national implications, Democrat Mark Critz moved ahead of Republican Tim Burns in a contest to fill out the final few months in the term of the late Rep. John Murtha in Pennsylvania. Each political party invested nearly $1 million in that contest and said the race to succeed the longtime Democratic lawmaker was something of a bellwether for the fall.

The conservative Paul told supporters after sealing his triumph over Secretary of State Trey Grayson: “I have a message, a message from the tea party, a message that is loud and clear and does not mince words: We have come to take our government back.”

But the same energy that helped Paul to victory presented problems to be handled carefully by the Republicans in the run-up to November, when control of both houses of Congress will be at stake.

Paul has said he might not support his fellow Kentuckian, McConnell, for a new term as party leader. And no sooner had Tuesday’s results been posted than Richard Viguerie, a longtime conservative warrior, suggested McConnell step aside.

The far-flung races took place a little less than five months before the midterm elections. President Barack Obama backed incumbents in his party’s races, but despite the stakes for his legislative agenda the White House insisted he was not following the results very closely.

Whatever the fate of the parties, public opinion polls — and the defeat of two veteran lawmakers in earlier contests — already had turned the campaign into a year of living dangerously for incumbents.

High unemployment, an economy just now emerging from the worst recession in generations and Congress’ decision to bail out Wall Street giants in 2008 all added to voters’ unease, polls said. In a survey released shortly before the polls closed, ABC said voter expectations for the economy had turned optimistic for the first time in six years. At that, only 33 percent of those polled said so in the network’s polling, compared with 29 percent saying the opposite.