Incumbent Hatch wins GOP primary

SALT LAKE CITY – Sen. Orrin Hatch won the GOP primary in Utah on Tuesday, handily turning back a challenge from tea party forces hoping to jolt the Republican Party again by defeating an incumbent who occasionally strayed from the movement’s focus on shrinking the federal government.

Tea partiers had more success in Oklahoma, where political newcomer Jim Bridenstine upset five-term Republican Rep. John Sullivan. Bridenstine ran to Sullivan’s right and criticized the incumbent for missing hundreds of House votes in the past decade.

Sullivan seemed to be caught off guard by the closeness of the race. He had won his five previous elections by gaining an increasingly larger percentage of the vote. In June 2009, Sullivan checked himself into the Betty Ford Center in California to combat alcoholism, and Bridenstine said during the campaign that Sullivan’s history of “substance abuse” made him unfit for office.

Until this summer, Hatch, 78, had not faced a primary challenge since winning office in 1976. Former state Sen. Dan Liljenquist, who survived a 2008 plane crash in Guatemala that killed 11 of 14 on board, won just enough support at the state GOP’s nominating convention to advance to the primary.

But Liljenquist faced an overwhelming financial and organizational disadvantage. Hatch, learning from the defeat two years ago of his Senate colleague Robert Bennett, spent about $10 million blanketing the airwaves and building a campaign operation unlike anything Utah had seen before.

Hatch’s race was the premier event in Tuesday’s primaries. In New York, 82-year-old Rep. Charlie Rangel won the Democratic primary in spite of a House censure 18 months ago for failing to pay all his taxes and for filing misleading financial disclosure statements.

A few months ago, Hatch was considered vulnerable like Bennett and six-term Republican Sen. Richard Lugar, who lost in last month’s Indiana GOP primary. But Hatch got a huge endorsement from Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, who said he would need Hatch in the Senate if he wins the presidency.

With the primary victory, Hatch is a huge favorite to win the general election in November against Democratic candidate Scott Howell.

Romney easily won his final presidential primary Tuesday as GOP voters in Utah relished the chance to show their support for the Brigham Young University graduate.