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hide caption<\/b><\/b>U.S. Sen. Pat Roberts waves to the crowd as he rides on the back of a pickup in a parade Saturday in Gardner, Kan.<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n <\/p>\n U.S. Sen. Pat Roberts waves to the crowd as he rides on the back of a pickup in a parade Saturday in Gardner, Kan.<\/p>\n Charlie Riedel<\/span>\/AP<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Veteran Kansas Republican Pat Roberts defeated radiologist Milton Wolf in a closely watched primary Tuesday, dealing the latest blow to Tea Party hopes of ousting a longtime Senate GOP incumbent in 2014.<\/p>\n With 82 percent of precincts reporting, The Associated Press called it for Roberts, who had 48 percent to Wolf’s 41 percent. Two little-known candidates trailed far behind.<\/p>\n Kansas was one of four states that went to the polls Tuesday \u2014 the others were Michigan, Missouri and Washington \u2014 but the challenge to Roberts, a Washington fixture for decades, took center stage.<\/p>\n A former congressional staffer who served eight terms in the House before winning election to the Senate in 1996, Roberts faced a combative challenge from Wolf, who painted the three-term senator as the personification of the Washington establishment.<\/p>\n A distant cousin of President Obama, Wolf called himself “a doctor, not a politician,” and donned a white lab coat in ads. He fashioned himself as a Kansas version of Texas GOP Sen. Ted Cruz and hoped to rally Tea Party energy behind his campaign.<\/p>\n Wolf’s campaign got a boost in February after a New York Times<\/em> story<\/a> chronicling the details of the senator’s residential situation exposed Roberts to criticism that he had lost touch with his home state.<\/p>\n But Wolf was hobbled with his own share of bad press: He was criticized for posting X-ray photos of patients’ injuries on Facebook and for making comments mocking gunshot victims.<\/p>\n In the state’s Wichita-based 4th congressional district, GOP Rep. Mike Pompeo fended off a challenge from former Republican Rep. Todd Tiahrt, who sought to win back the seat he vacated in 2010 to run for Senate.<\/p>\n In Michigan, however, GOP Rep. Kerry Bentivolio was defeated, making him the third House member to lose in a primary this year. Bentivolio was often referred to as the “accidental congressman,” who, as a Tea Party challenger in 2012, was swept into office after Rep. Thaddeus McCotter unexpectedly failed to make the ballot in the suburban Detroit-based 11th congressional district.<\/p>\n Bentivolio’s opponent, real estate attorney David Trott, outspent the freshman congressman by a wide margin \u2014 he sunk more than $3.5 million of his own money on the campaign, while the incumbent raised $570,000 \u2014 while Bentivolio barely even campaigned.<\/a> The results reflected it: Trott defeated him 66 percent to 34 percent, a stunningly large losing margin for an incumbent.<\/p>\n Elsewhere in the state, in the Grand Rapids-based 3rd congressional district, Rep. Justin Amash, a libertarian-minded Republican at odds with the GOP establishment, weathered a strong challenge from businessman Brian Ellis. Ellis was backed by the Chamber of Commerce and loaned himself more than $1 million, but Amash managed to hold him off, 57 percent to 43 percent.<\/p>\n
\n Charlie Riedel<\/span>\/AP<\/span><\/span> <\/p>\n<\/p>\n