Rep. Mike Castle, on the ropes in Delaware before tomorrow’s GOP Senate primary, said in an interview with ABC which aired today that he was warned about the tea party’s strength and tactics by fellow Republicans.
Castle (R-DE) told ABC’s Jonathan Karl that he spoke with Sen. Lisa Murkowski after a tea party-endorsed candidate unseated her in Alaska’s Republican primary.
“She called me several days after she went down and said, ‘These people will come hard, be careful,'” Castle said in the interview, which aired on ABC’s “TopLine.”
Castle said that Murkowski told him, “Prepare yourself,” given the battle she’d faced in Alaska. He’s facing the same forces, with the Tea Party Express spending more than $250,000 for his Republican rival Christine O’Donnell, who has never held political office.
After Castle made similar remarks to The Hill, the Tea Party Express fundraised off of it, saying he was colluding with “sore loser” Murkowski. Tea Party Express officials wrote:
We’ve been telling you how much the Delaware U.S. Senate race has become a David vs. Goliath battle – with the most liberal elements of the Republican Party conspiring to defeat conservative candidates for office who are backed by the Tea Party movement.
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They then have the nerve to say we’ve “misrepresented” their record because we told Republican voters how liberal their voting record had been and how many times they voted for Obama, Reid and Pelosi.
Both O’Donnell and Murkowski foe Joe Miller in Alaska have been boosted by endorsements from Sarah Palin.
Castle said he’s never spoken with Palin. In her own “TopLine” interview, O’Donnell told Karl she got the Palin news last week via text message from a staffer while she was campaigning in a diner. She also repeated her line from an appearance on Fox News earlier that Castle is about to “drown” in a tidal wave sweeping Delaware.
“This has not been an easy election cycle,” Castle said.
