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A battle for control of the Republican Party has erupted as an emboldened Tea Party moved to oust senators who voted to reopen the government while business groups mobilized to defeat allies of the small-government movement.

A battle for control of the Republican Party has erupted as an emboldened Tea Party moved to oust senators who voted to reopen the government while business groups mobilized to defeat allies of the small-government movement.

The Cook Political Report, a nonpartisan Washington-based group that tracks races, changed the ratings of 15 U.S. House seats yesterday, all but one in favor of the prospects for Democrats. After three vacancies are filled in the 435-member House, Democrats are expected to need a net pickup of 17 seats to win back the majority they lost in the 2010 elections.

Hurting Brand

“They voted ‘no’ because they understand this is a rallying cry” and that backing the agreement could be used against them, Tom Davis, a former National Republican Congressional Committee chairman and now director of federal government affairs for Deloitte Consulting, said in an interview. “This has not helped Republicans. It’s hurt the Republican brand.”

“The strategy of primarying people like Thad Cochran (who voted top end the shutdown) is more of the same and it means more Senate minorities in the future,” said David French, the top lobbyist in Washington for the National Retail Federation. “I question the judgment there.”

“There are incumbent Republicans who are on the wrong side of some of these issues,” said French, whose organization spent more than $300,000 on races in 2012. “There are definitely some incumbent Republicans we’re not going to support again.”

The chamber has challenged the Tea Party before and Reed said they will follow a similar strategy next year.

Leading up to the 2012 Republican primary, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Michigan Chamber of Commerce paid for television ads backing Representative Fred Upton, chairman of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce. Upton was fending off a challenge from Jack Hoogendyk, a former state representative backed by the Tea Party-aligned FreedomWorks, which posted online a “Down with Upton” petition. Upton won with 67 percent of the vote compared with 33 percent for Hoogendyk.

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, which assists candidates, is attacking the Republican House members who are running for the Senate, saying they’re partly to blame for the unpopular shutdown.

“Republicans are immeasurably damaged by this,” said the Democratic committee’s spokesman, Justin Barasky. “They repeatedly voted to keep the government shutdown. It highlights a recklessness and irresponsibility that all those candidates have.” http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-10-18/republican-civil-war-erupts-b
usiness-groups-v-tea-party.html

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