Sen. Orrin Hatch won the GOP primary in Utah on Tuesday, handily turning back a challenge from tea party forces hoping to jolt the Republican Party again by defeating an incumbent who occasionally strayed from the movement's focus on shrinking the federal government. 
 
 U.S. Senator Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, greets members of his family on a street corner outside his campaign headquarters, Tuesday, June 26, 2012, in Salt Lake City. The 78-year-old, six term senator is facing... (Associated Press) 
 
 Former Utah state senator, Dan Liljenquist, right, waves to motorists during last minute campaigning in a primary election against incumbent senator Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, Tuesday, June 26, 2012, in Salt... (Associated Press) 
 
 Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., shakes hands with a poll worker as he arrives to vote in the Democratic primary, Tuesday, June 26, 2012 in New York. He faces State Sen. Adriano Espaillat, who would be the... (Associated Press) 
 
 U.S. Senator Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, holds his 3-month-old great grandson, Beckham Wilson after arriving at his campaign headquarters to thank his staff and volunteers, Tuesday, June 26, 2012, in Salt Lake... (Associated Press) 
 
 U.S. Senator Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, greets members of his family on a street corner outside his campaign headquarters, Tuesday, June 26, 2012, in Salt Lake City. The 78-year-old, six term senator is facing... (Associated Press) 
 
 U.S. Senator Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, holds his 3-month-old great grandson, Beckham Wilson, as he greets his great grand daughter, 8-month-old Maggie Jennings, and her mother, Callie Jennings, after arriving... (Associated Press) 
 
 Until this summer, Hatch, 78, had not faced a primary challenge since winning office in 1976. Former state Sen. Dan Liljenquist, who survived a 2008 plane crash in Guatemala that killed 11 of 14 on board, won just enough support at the state GOP's nominating convention to advance to the primary. 
 
 But Liljenquist faced an overwhelming financial and organizational disadvantage. Hatch, learning from the defeat two years ago of his Senate colleague Robert Bennett, spent about $10 million blanketing the airwaves and building a campaign operation unlike anything Utah had seen before. 
 
 Hatch's race was the premier event in Tuesday's primaries. In New York, 82-year-old Rep. Charlie Rangel won the Democratic primary in spite of a House censure 18 months ago for failing to pay all his taxes and for filing misleading financial disclosure statements. 
 
 In Oklahoma, Rep. John Sullivan was in a close contest against political newcomer Jim Bridenstine, who ran to Sullivan's right and criticized the incumbent for missing hundreds of House votes in the past decade. 
 
 A few months ago, Hatch was considered vulnerable like Bennett and six-term Republican Sen. Richard Lugar, who lost in last month's Indiana GOP primary. But Hatch got a huge endorsement from Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, who said he would need Hatch in the Senate if he wins the presidency. 
 
 Romney easily won his final presidential primary Tuesday as GOP voters in Utah relished the chance to show their support for the Brigham Young University graduate. 
 
 Hatch seemed to have an answer to every criticism in his quest for a seventh term. For those who said that 36 years in office was enough, he said that he wouldn't be running again if it weren't for the opportunity to serve as chairman of the Senate Finance Committee if the GOP wins control of the Senate. He also announced it would be his last term. 
 
 For those who said he wasn't conservative enough, he gravitated to the right with his comments and his votes, scoring a 100 percent rating from the American Conservative Union in 2010 and 2011. His lifetime rating of 89 percent from the ACU would place Hatch among the Senate's most conservative lawmakers, but Hatch at times took stands that didn't sit well with the right. He worked with the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy to establish a health insurance program for poor and moderate-income children. He also voted to establish a prescription drug benefit under Medicare and to rescue financial firms facing bankruptcy without government help. 
 
 Liljenquist, 37, a relative newcomer to the Utah political scene, seized on voters' concerns about the growing national debt and tried to make the case that Hatch had been a major contributor to that debt. 
 
 Hatch was widely viewed as most vulnerable when about 4,000 GOP stalwarts gathered at the state's nominating convention in April. Delegates at the convention tend to be more conservative than the GOP electorate, and the Hatch campaign team spent months trying to generate a new crop of delegates. That work paid off, with the large majority of delegates being new to the process. In the end, Hatch won 59.2 percent of the delegates, just shy of the 60 percent he needed to avoid a runoff with Liljenquist. 
 
 The Hatch campaign included many of the state's top political consultants and strategists. It also hired some of the tea party activists who had helped generate Sen. Mike Lee's victory two years ago. 
 
 With the primary victory, Hatch was a huge favorite to win the general election in November against Democratic candidate Scott Howell. 
 
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 Freking reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Beth Fouhy in New York and Anne Gearan in Washington contributed to this report. ||||| NEW YORK – Rep. Charles Rangel survived the toughest reelection fight of his career, overcoming health and ethics troubles to extend his four-decade run in the House with a win in the New York primary Tuesday night. 
 
 With nearly 84 percent of precincts reporting, Rangel was ahead of state Sen. Adriano Espaillat by slightly more than 5 percentage points, and the Associated Press declared him the winner. In a statement just before midnight, Espaillat conceded and congratulated Rangel. 
 
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 Appearing with supporters at his Harlem victory party Tuesday evening, Rangel, 82, did not address how much longer he plans to serve in the House, only saying that he’s committed to the next two-year term. 
 
 “There are just too many people who have put their trust and confidence in me and President Obama in this great country,” said Rangel, who withstood a similar primary challenge in 2010. “We face real challenges.” 
 
 The race was the most closely watched House primary of the night, but voters in five states cast ballots. The most surprising result came in Oklahoma, where GOP Rep. John Sullivan lost the seat he has held since 2002 to a little-known, tea party-backed opponent. 
 
 In another closely-watched House race in the Empire State, state Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries crushed New York councilman Charles Barron, a former Black Panther with a history of fiery rhetoric whose candidacy spooked the Democratic establishment. 
 
 Rangel’s triumph marked his latest display of survival instincts. He was dogged by a bad back and ethics controversy and managed to overcome a redistricting process that forced him to fight for reelection on less friendly political terrain. 
 
 But in the campaign’s final weeks, the co-founder of the Congressional Black Caucus, who was first elected in 1970, made it very clear he still had some fight, staring down his opponents and lambasting the press corps for its coverage of him. 
 
 His defiance continued through the final hours of the campaign. 
 
 Dressed in a crisp blue suit and red tie and pocket square and accompanied by his wife, Alma, Rangel arrived at a Harlem polling station at around 11 a.m. to cast his ballot. He expressed confidence and said he hadn’t given much thought to the idea that he could come up short. 
 
 “If I lose tonight I will sleep just like a baby and cry myself to sleep,” Rangel said. “If you have the spirit that’s necessary to overcome these political obstacles, and if you’re fortunate to know that they’re not obstacles that you can’t overcome, then the attitude of ‘What do I do if I lose?’ never reaches that level.” 
 
 Rangel’s career was put in jeopardy after a 2010 ethics investigation that culminated in him being censured on the House floor. That year, he easily defeated several primary opponents who sought to exploit his political problems. 
 
 Adding to his problems, earlier this year his seat was refashioned to include more Latino voters than blacks. That gave an opening to Rangel’s lead primary opponent, Espaillat, a 57-year-old state senator who is Dominican American. Making matters worse, Rangel had to compete with three lesser known black candidates who threatened to siphon African American votes from him. 
 
 And the incumbent was incapacitated for three months this year by health problems, including a bad back and a viral infection. Rangel revealed last week that he had been receiving a daily IV infusion of antibiotics. 
 
 But on Tuesday, Rangel said he had shown he’s just fine.
– The Tea Party failed to claim another victim in Utah after Sen. Orrin Hatch easily won the state's Republican primary. Hatch—facing his first primary challenge since taking office in 1976—beat former state Sen. Dan Liljenquist after spending close to $10 million on advertising, and building one of the biggest campaign operations Utah has ever seen, reports AP. Mitt Romney, to nobody's surprise, scored upwards of 90% in Utah's Republican presidential primary, the final primary before the convention. In New York, Rep. Charles Rangel survived a tough re-election fight to win the Democratic primary, despite concerns about his age and ethics, reports Politico. The 82-year-old Harlem politician, who was censured by the House 18 months ago for ethics violations, was more than 5 points ahead of state Sen. Adriano Espaillat with 85% of precincts reporting. In another House race in New York, state lawmaker Hakeem Jeffries scored a resounding win over New York City Councilman Charles Barron, a former Black Panther who received a controversial endorsement from David Duke.