POLITICO says the days of the robust, ascending Texas TEA party may be over.
[A]s voters go to the polls Tuesday for the state’s primary election, it’s clear the tea party’s heyday in the Lone Star State — at least for the moment — has passed. A push to unseat two of the GOP establishment’s most prominent figures, Sen. John Cornyn and Rep. Pete Sessions, has all but collapsed. And nearly all of the 23 House GOP incumbents seeking reelection are expected to glide to primary wins, many against underfunded, obscure tea party opponents.
It would make sense for 2014 to be a good year for the tea party crowd. After all, public resentment toward President Barack Obama is running high in many parts of the country, and midterm years tend to be dominated by an older and whiter set of voters — in other words, the kind of people who might describe themselves as tea party voters.
Yet for Texas conservatives, the heady days of 2010, when Perry suggested at a tea party rally that the state may eventually want to secede from the union, or 2012, when Cruz shocked an establishment candidate on his way to political stardom, seem like a distant memory. The Texas tea party’s struggles in a Republican year is a disappointment and, some say, reflects a deeper concern: that the once all-powerful movement isn’t as organized or effective as it once was.
“I don’t think the tea party has coalesced in 2014 the way they did for Ted Cruz in 2012,” said Toby Marie Walker, president of the Waco Tea Party. “But Ted was an anomaly — he was the perfect candidate in the perfect storm.”
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