A Number of GOP Senators Will Get Primary Challengers

After primary challenges knocked Arlen Specter into the Dem Party, Charlie Crist into a failed independent race, Bob Bennett completely out of the Senate and Lisa Murkowsky into an apparently winning independent bid, Tea Party activists have their sights set on a number of other squishy Republicans:

Another bloody Republican Senate primary election season is taking shape for 2012, with potentially serious intra-party challenges percolating in close to a half-dozen states.

Polls indicate that at least two veteran GOP senators are highly vulnerable to challenges on their right flank — Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch and Maine Sen. Olympia Snowe – and there are rumblings about potential GOP bids against Nevada Sen. John Ensign, Texas Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison and Indiana Sen. Dick Lugar as well.

On the whole, the 2012 map looks extremely promising for the GOP. After posting a six-seat gain in 2010, Republicans are in a position to pick up even more seats in the 2012 cycle, with 21 Democratic senators up for re-election, including two Independents who caucus with them, compared to just 10 Republicans.

But the possibility of multiple fractious primary challenges casts a shadow over the 2012 cycle after an election season marked by two GOP Senate incumbents who were denied renomination, a third who switched parties to avoid a tough primary and several other messy primaries that likely cost the party a chance at winning a majority.

The obvious risk in this is we could have another Delaware in which a weak candidate knocked off the establishment Republican and a sure win was turned into a defeat. That sort of thing could happen in Maine with Sen. Snowe. A more conservative candidate might not be able to win up there.