The Cost of Crushing the Tea Party

“National Republican leaders are toasting primary season as a smashing success over activist conservatives that has put the hard right on the ropes and given the Washington GOP the slate of candidates it wanted for 2014,” Politico reports.

“Those victories, however, have come at a staggering cost — and Republicans are painfully aware of the price of putting down an intraparty insurrection. Establishment-aligned groups have already spent some $23 million on independent expenditures propping up favored House and Senate candidates in contentious primaries… By comparison, Republican nominees raised and spent that amount in the 2012 North Dakota, Indiana and Nevada Senate races combined — three of the most competitive campaigns fought that year.”