So, no incumbent Senator from either Party lost their primary in 2022...

[Polybius]

Is it rare that not a single Senator loses their primary?

[yardwork]

1. Incumbents always have a big advantage.

[Polybius]

6. Yes, a very big advantage

But doesn't at least one almost always lose? I'd love to see data on this.

Edit: I saw data and no Senator has lost a primary since 2012. I stand corrected, it's quite rare to lose a primary.

[yardwork]

9. As we know in NC where we try and try to oust these Republicans...

[WhiskeyGrinder]

2. It's very rare for senators to lose primary challenges, and even rarer in the House. Incumbency is

powerful.

[Polybius]

4. Yes, but my post is about as a whole

33/34 run every even election cycle. Doesn't at least one usually lose? Anyone have stats on recent cycles like 2020, 2018, 2016, and 2014?

[WhiskeyGrinder]

7. No. From 1962-2010, only 25 senators lost to primary challengers.

Richard Lugar may have been the last in 2012; I can't find one since then.

[Polybius]

8. Thank you!

So 2010-2014 appears to be an abnormality. If I recall, several Republicans lost their primaries those years.

[onenote]

11. Murkowski in 2010 and Lugar in 2012. And Specter in 2010

Those are the incumbents who lost primaries between 2010 and 2014.

Murkowski ended winning the general election as a write in candidate.
Specter lost in part because he couldn't make up his mind whether he was a Republican or Democrat -- he kept switching sides.
And Lugar lost to a tea party candidate who painted him as too moderate and as an "absentee" Senator in that he hadn't lived in Indiana for years.

[Polybius]

13. There's also Bob Bennett in Utah

Ousted by Mike Lee in 2010, although Utah has a weird system of nominating.

Bennett was a popular and reliably conservative senator for most of his tenure, earning high ratings from conservative activist groups such as the National Rifle Association, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and American Conservative Union. However, in 2010, Bennett became one of the most prominent targets of the Tea Party Movement, which criticized his support of the Bush Administration's bank bailout and argued that Bennett was insufficiently conservative. Despite an enthusiastic endorsement from Mitt Romney, Bennett was denied a place on the primary ballot by the 2010 Utah State Republican Convention, placing third behind two Tea-Party-backed candidates.

Bon Bennett

[onenote]

15. Technically, Bennett wasn't defeated in a primary. He was defeated in party convention.

The end result is the same, although party conventions sometimes don't reflect the will of the party's voters.

[Polybius]

16. I really wish that there was a list of Senators who lost their primaries

Last 50 years or so would be nice to look at.

[BlueIdaho]

3. More common than not.

It usually takes a dramatic piece of news like being caught with a live boy or a dead girl in your limousine to crush a re-election campaign. Now with the ChristoFascists even that is no surefire way to lose a primary election.

[Polybius]

5. I know that quite a bit of Republican Senators lost their primaries from 2010-2014

If it's more common that not that not a single one loses, do you have any data that shows 2020, 2018, or 2016? I'm no Google expert, but nothing came up in a search.

Edit: As another posted pointed out, Richard Lugar appears to be the last Senator to lose a primary (2012). Thank you, it is indeed common that one one loses a primary.

[onenote]

12. I don't think two is "quite a bit"

Murkowski in 2010 (and she ended up winning the general election as a write-in candidate)
Lugar in 2012.

[Polybius]

14. And the previously mentioned Spector and Bennett

I am looking in to this to see if any others are missed.

[Genki Hikari]

10. The Edwin Edwards Gold Standard

Is what I call the 'dead girl/live boy" standard for likelihood of winning.

My best friend is his goddaughter. If y'all thought he was colorful out there in public where you could see him, well, I'll assure you he was even more outrageous in private.