What some called the Super Tuesday of the 2014 mid-term election cycle, with six states holding nominating contests, began with a big win for the Republican establishment.
In Kentucky, Sen. Mitch McConnell's smack down of Tea Party-backed businessman Matt Bevin in the GOP primary was an emphatic victory for the five-term senator who made this bold prediction about Tea Party-backed Senate challengers earlier this year: "We're going to crush them everywhere."
In defeating Bevin 60 percent to 36 percent, McConnell's clear-cut win suggested he might have a unified Republican party with him in his race against Democrat Alison Lundergan Grimes who, as expected, also won her primary.
Recent polls have placed McConnell and Grimes in a statistical tie in a contest likely to be the most expensive Senate race in the 2014 election cycle. As this was being written, McConnell had a nearly 30-percentage point lead on Bevin. That suggested the Senate's Republican leader might not have a mostly unified party behind him come November.
McConnell's victory was, to some extent, a kind of delayed revenge for the Senate minority leader. In 2010, his preferred candidate for an open Senate seat lost to Sen. Rand Paul, the Tea Party favorite that year. Four years later, not only did McConnell beat aTea Party-backed challenger, he did it with Paul's support.
Polls in Georgia, like in Kentucky, closed at 7 pm but results weren't yet available in a race there that pit several Republicans against each other for the nomination to an open Senate seat. The Republicans would be facing Democratic primary winner Michelle Nunn, the daughter of a popular former senator from the state.
As in Kentucky, the Republican race found establishment Republicans, confronting candidates with Tea Party backing.
David Perdue, the former CEO of Dollar General and cousin of former Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue, and Rep. Jack Kingston, chair of a House Appropriations subcommittee represented the establishment. Going into primary day, the likeliest outcome seemed that they would face off against each other in a July runoff as the two top vote getters.
The GOP's Tea Party wing was represented by three candidates: Rep. Paul Broun, who attracted national attention for his infamous comment that evolution and the Big Bang were "lies straight from the pit of hell;" Rep. Phil Gingrey, a medical doctor, and Karen Handel, the former senior vice president for public policy at Susan G. Komen for the Cure.
The four other states with primaries were Arkansas, Pennsylvania, Idaho and Oregon.
Pennsylvania's primary to decide the Democratic nominee for governor resulted with businessman Tom Wolf winning going away as expected. At the time of this writing, he had more than 50 percent of the primary vote while the woman who at one time was thought to be the likeliest to win the nomination, Rep. Allyson Schwartz, was far behind in second place.
In Arkansas, Democratic Sen. Mark Pryor and Republican Rep. Tom Cotton were expected to easily win their parties' Senate nominations.
In Idaho, eight-term congressman Rep. Mike Simpson faced a challenge from Tea Party-backed Bryan Smith who drew early support from the Club for Growth but found that backing waning as the Chamber of Commerce and other establishment groups rallied behind the incumbent.
Oregon's Republican primary featured Dr. Monica Wehby who faced a Tea Party-backed challenger, Jason Conger, a state representative. Both wanted to be the party's choice to run against first-term Democratic Sen. Jeff Merkley.
Wehby was thought to be the likely winner of the Republican primary though her candidacy was rocked by allegations that she had stalked an ex-boyfriend and that her ex-husband had complained of her post-divorce behavior as well.
The impact of that late-breaking controversy on the race could be minimal since many of the ballots in Oregon were already mailed in when that information became public.