Christine O’Donnell, a Tea Party favorite and Sarah Palin-endorsed candidate, defeated Representative Mike Castle (LAW ’64) in yesterday’s Delaware senate Republican primary.

Castle, who earned an undergraduate degree from Hamilton College before heading to the Georgetown University Law Center, served nine terms as Delaware’s sole member of the House of Representatives.

Castle was the favorite of the Republican establishment, which now fears that there is little chance for the party to pick up Vice President Joe Biden’s old senate seat. The National Republican Senatorial Committee threw its full weight behind Castle, and said that they will not be supporting his opponent—even before O’Donnell was able to take the stage to give a victory speech. However, NRSC Chair Senator John Cornyn (Texas) said today that O’Donnell will still receive national support for her campaign.

Castle refused to offer support to O’Donnell, whom Karl Rove describes as “nutty.”

This is not the first time this primary season that an alumnus has been defeated by a Tea Party candidate.

Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski (COL ’80), was defeated last month by another “Mama Grizzly” endorsed candidate: Joe Miller. Murkowski plans to announce this week whether or not she will run as a write-in candidate in the general election. (Earlier this week, Murkowski told supporters that she believes the Alaska Republican Party has been “hijacked by the Tea Party Express, an outside extremist group.”)

Vox is not typically one to believe in conspiracy theories, but after these two primaries, we’re beginning to think this guy started the Tea Party.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 15th, 2010 at 3:00 pm and is filed under News, Vox Populi. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.