The One and Only Poldaran wrote:
If they're smart, they might try to lessen the polarization of the districts a bit to dull the chances that the Tea Party will get nominated and promptly lose the wider elections. Then again, they're politicians and I don't have much faith in those.
That wouldn't work.
(A) You have a strong red district. Republican voters choose Tea Party guy in primary. Tea Party guy beats Democrat in general since district is mainly red.
(B) You have a moderate red district. Republican primary voters choose Tea Party guy since primary voters tend to be more ideological. Democrat beats Tea Party guy due to moderate general electorate being turned off by Tea Party stances.
Both have a Tea Party guy getting nominated but only (A) has an extra GOP vote in Congress. If the GOP wants to diminish the influence of the Tea Party, they have to do it in the primaries. In fact, the narrative this primary season
was how the establishment GOP was taming the Tea Party with incumbents fighting off new primary challengers but that seems to have been derailed between Cantor and the Mississippi senate primary.