Lugar Loses Primary Challenge in Indiana break on lugar

Peter W. Stevenson for The New York Times

Senator Richard G. Lugar spoke to his supporters in Indianapolis on Tuesday.

INDIANAPOLIS — Richard G. Lugar, one of the Senate's longest-serving members, a collegial moderate who personified a gentler political era, was turned out of office on Tuesday, ending a career that had spanned the terms of half a dozen presidents and had seen broad shifts in the culture of Washington.

Mr. Lugar, a six-term senator who had won most of his recent elections with more than 60 percent of the vote, lost a hard-fought Republican primary to Richard E. Mourdock, the state treasurer. Mr. Mourdock's campaign was fueled by Tea Party groups and national conservative organizations that deemed Mr. Lugar too willing to compromise and poured millions of dollars into the campaign to defeat him.

Mr. Lugar, 80, had not faced a challenge from within his own party since his first election to the Senate in 1976.

Mr. Lugar's defeat continued a hollowing of the middle of the Senate and seemed to serve as a caution to moderates on both sides of the aisle known for trying to work with their colleagues.

In February, Senator Olympia J. Snowe of Maine, a moderate Republican, decided not to run for re-election, citing polarization in Washington. Senators Kent Conrad of North Dakota, a Democratic fiscal centrist, and Jim Webb of Virginia, a moderate Democrat, are retiring. Two other moderate Democrats, Senators Claire McCaskill of Missouri and Jon Tester of Montana, face tough re-election races.

Tea Party organizers and conservative leaders held the Indiana outcome as evidence of a broader national demand for Republicans with unshakable stances on fiscal reform and conservative values, as well as proof of the continuing power of the Tea Party movement.

"Richard Mourdock's victory truly sends a message to the liberals in the Republican Party," said Chris Chocola, president of the Club for Growth. "Voters are rejecting the policies that led to record debt and diminished economic freedom, and they will continue to be rejected in elections throughout America."

For a number of Mr. Lugar's supporters, the results were a sorry arc — not just for a man who has served for 35 years in Washington and as mayor of Indianapolis before that, but for a larger notion of working across party lines in Washington.

Still, some Democrats, both here and in Washington, eager to hold onto the Senate, seemed buoyed by the results here. With Mr. Lugar's defeat, they see the glimmer of an opportunity to claim a Senate seat that the party had considered out of reach as long as Mr. Lugar was in the running. The Democratic candidate, Representative Joe Donnelly, is thought to have better chance with independents and moderate Republicans in November against Mr. Mourdock.

Almost immediately, Democrats began emphasizing Mr. Mourdock's conservative views. Dan Parker, chairman of the Indiana Democratic Party, issued a statement that read, in part, "Hoosiers deserve real leadership that will reach across the aisle in Richard Lugar's successor, not Richard Mourdock's Tea Party extremism."

For months, the campaign here had been intense, expensive and, by Indiana standards, mean. Outside groups including the Club for Growth, the National Rifle Association and FreedomWorks, a group that has helped build the Tea Party movement around the country, had viewed Mr. Lugar as a ripe and overdue target, and they poured millions of dollars for advertising and other aid into the race.

Mr. Lugar is the ranking Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and may be best known for his 1990s effort, along with Sam Nunn, a Georgia Democrat, for a disarmament program in the former Soviet Union. He was criticized throughout the campaign for what critics described as his tendency to cooperate with Democrats, including President Obama. He shifted to the right in 2011, after the threat to his re-election became clear.

Mr. Mourdock, meanwhile, has said that bipartisanship has led the nation to the brink of bankruptcy, and that the nation's current circumstances call for a time of confrontation, not collegiality.

Some of Mr. Lugar's critics accused him of being Mr. Obama's closest Republican friend — a claim Mr. Lugar scoffed at, but also took questions about right up until Tuesday afternoon. They also railed against positions he took at various times in favor of Mr. Obama's Supreme Court nominees, the Dream Act, the bank bailout, the New Start nuclear arms control treaty and more.

Carl Hulse and Jennifer Steinhauer contributed reporting from Washington.