Optimism strong for other states

Mrs. Medina, who never held elected office before, did manage to get an extraordinary 20 percent of the vote in the Republican primary, in which Democrats and independents were allowed to cast ballots. However, Mr. Perry apparently received the bulk of the tea-party vote, and he and Mrs. Medina racked up more than 70 percent of the votes cast in the primary.

Eric Bruechner, who heads the Mount Pleasant Texas Tea Party, said “Medina’s votes were nearly 100 percent from the grass-roots tea-party movement,” while Mrs. Hutchison’s party base consisted mostly of so-called RINOs – Republicans in name only.

“The tea-party influence will be much larger across the country than anyone predicts,” Mr. Bruechner said. “If the Democrats push through [President Obama's health care plan], that will have an exponential effect on the tea party’s influence across the nation.”

Extrapolating from the Texas vote to the national midterms this fall can be tricky.