Lugar’s Primary Challenge Shows Tea Party’s Republican Rift

In a southern Indiana banquet room last week, Republicans dined on pork chops, listened to local politicians, then cast an informal vote in a race on all their minds: next year’s re-election bid by six-term Senator Richard Lugar, their party’s senior-most member of Congress.

Lugar lost the Pike County Republican straw poll, with 11 votes to 42 for primary challenger Richard Mourdock, the state treasurer. Mourdock, who is courting support from Tea Party activists, was the keynote speaker at the April 21 dinner. Lugar was on a family vacation on Sanibel Island, Florida.