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The Palin Factor in Today’s Elections

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R) decided to lavish perhaps her last endorsement of the election cycle yesterday evening on former GOP Rep. Tom Tancredo, who’s

Jul 31, 202010.3K Shares313.7K Views
Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R) decided to lavish perhaps her last endorsementof the election cycle yesterday evening on former GOP Rep. Tom Tancredo, who’s now running for governor in Colorado as a member of the American Constitution Party and has pulled within striking distance of Denver mayor John Hickenlooper (D).
“Hi, this is Governor Sarah Palin. I’m calling to ask that you and your neighbors vote for Tom Tancredo to be the next governor of Colorado on Tuesday,” Palin says in a robocall she recordedfor the Tancredo campaign. “Tom is the right man for the job and he’ll fight for lower taxes, and he’ll stop growing government and start growing the economy, and we know he’ll continue working to end illegal immigration.”
Palin’s endorsements have been tracked more closely than those of any other politician — The Washington Post’s Palin Endorsement Trackerindicates it’s her 61st of the cycle — but beyond her personal win-loss record, many pundits argue that today’s results will have important implications for both the Tea Party and Sarah Palin’s standing within the Republican Party. The New York Times has a chartindicating that 138 candidates running for the House and Senate have Tea Party ties; the relative success or failure of those candidates tonight will speak to the kind of mandate the movement can claim and the size of any potential Tea Party caucus in Congress.
Beyond that, the outcomes of Senate races in Alaska, Delaware, Nevada and Colorado — each of which features an arch-conservative Tea Party candidate representing the Republican ticket — will play an outsize role in people’s and pundits’ minds when they ask whether the movement has helped or hurt Republicans win key seats this election cycle. Delaware is widely predicted to go to the Democrat Chris Coons, and if another of these races tips to the Democrat, one could make a legitimate case that the Tea Party kept Republicans from taking the Senate.
Paula M. Graham

Paula M. Graham

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