O'Donnell upsets Castle in Delaware

WILMINGTON - The tea party movement claimed another establishment Republican on Tuesday, helping insurgent candidate Christine O'Donnell vanquish moderate Rep. Mike Castle in the GOP Senate primary.

O'Donnell, a little-known marketing consultant who was considered a long shot, pulled off one of the most shocking upsets in a turbulent election year, winning by 53.1 percent to 46.9 percent.

Red-eyed supporters gathered in the Chase Center seemed stunned as Castle, a former governor who had won numerous statewide elections, took the stage a little before 9:45 p.m. to concede that his career was over.

"The last couple weeks have been 'spirited,' shall we say," said Castle, 71. "The Republican voters have spoken in the primary, and I respect that." He choked up as he thanked his wife, Jane, and said he was proud of his 44 years of public service; pointedly, Castle did not congratulate or endorse O'Donnell.

O'Donnell, 41, will face Democrat Chris Coons, the New Castle County executive, for the Senate seat Vice President Biden held for 36 years.

Republican leaders and independent analysts said that Castle's loss would make it difficult, if not impossible, for the GOP to take control of the Senate on Nov. 2.

In an Elks lodge in Dover, elated O'Donnell supporters chanted her name.

"We have an army of volunteers who are committed to a cause greater than themselves," O'Donnell told them. "The cause is restoring America."

The Delaware campaign, which had been sedate, became in its latter days a vicious battle in the ongoing war between the establishment and tea party insurgents that has marked the 2010 GOP primary season.

Activists were energized after Joe Miller, a tea party movement candidate, knocked off Sen. Lisa Murkowski in Alaska's Republican primary Aug. 24. Miller believes Social Security and Medicare should end and has called unemployment benefits unconstitutional. He also stands a good chance of winning the seat, polls show.

Murkowski and her party allies did not take Miller seriously, and she was ambushed. The Delaware GOP was determined not to repeat the mistake, and unleashed a barrage of attacks on O'Donnell's character that continued Tuesday as voters went to the polls.

O'Donnell, a perennial candidate who was the GOP's nominee two years ago against Biden, has had financial problems, including unpaid debts to her college, a federal tax lien (since satisfied), and difficulty paying her mortgage. She declared that GOP spies were stalking her, and was caught exaggerating her educational background on her resume.

These attacks only solidified O'Donnell's fervent grassroots support.

"It really is a struggle for the soul of the Republican Party, whether it will be controlled by the establishment or commonsense conservatives," said Kristen Sherman of Bear, Del., events coordinator of Founders' Values, a limited-government group allied with tea party organizations. "Mike Castle has taken the mentality that he's entitled to the position, that he doesn't do 'job interviews.' "

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the GOP's 2008 vice-presidential nominee, backed O'Donnell, as did Sen. Jim DeMint (R., S.C.), a leader of the right. But Freedom Works, an advocacy group that helped spark the tea party movement, stayed on the sidelines, believing that O'Donnell could not win in the general election.

In addition to Alaska, tea party-backed candidates have won the Republican nominations for Senate in Utah, Nevada, and Kentucky. Polls show all of them could win.

Delaware's electorate, however, is traditionally moderate, and Castle had argued that O'Donnell would be unelectable in November.

Tea party activists are angry about Castle's votes in favor of the bank and auto bailouts and the stimulus program, and especially for the Democrats' energy bill that would impose a cap-and-trade system for reducing carbon emissions. Opponents of that approach say it amounts to a tax that will drive up the cost of energy.

Although Castle voted against the national health-care legislation, conservatives were not impressed because he has declined to support an effort to repeal the plan.

Political insurgencies face less resistance in small states such as Delaware, especially in this angry climate. Only a relative handful of the state's Republicans decided the contest, but turnout was still larger than in other GOP primaries. On the edges of the Philadelphia media market, candidates can win primaries by knocking on doors and going to festivals, and ideologically driven voters tend to show up more often in primaries.

Castle needed a good turnout from populous New Castle County, the northernmost of Delaware's three counties, home to many moderate Republicans. Rural Kent and Sussex Counties tend to have more conservative GOP voters.

"Delaware is not a state that has ever voted to an extreme like this in either party," said Don Mell, a government relations consultant active in GOP politics. "I guarantee you, the Democratic establishment and independents are mourning this as much as we are."

The liberal Americans for Democratic Action last year rated Castle the most liberal Republican in the House, saying he voted in line with the group's views 55 percent of the time. He also voted 56 percent of the time with the American Conservative Union.

Castle is pretty much in line with other Northeastern Republicans in the House who have moderate voting records, including Reps. Charlie Dent, Jim Gerlach, and Todd Platts of Pennsylvania; Leonard Lance and Frank LoBiondo of New Jersey; and Peter King of New York.

It used to be a bigger group. Northeastern moderate Republicans have become a threatened species, felled by conservatives who want to purge the party of "RINOs" - Republicans in name only - and by the Democratic sweeps of 2006 and 2008.

Nonetheless, Castle still enjoyed personal approval ratings in the high 60s, even as O'Donnell was overtaking him. People still talk about how he would dress up on Halloween to pass out candy at the governor's mansion, or about seeing him in local parades.

Castle was reelected to the House with 61 percent of the vote in 2008, a Democratic year with President Obama and Biden at the top of the ticket.