In the month ahead, similar contests will unfold in several more states, including Kentucky, home of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. The establishment—defined here as the traditionally corporate and institutional GOP—hopes to keep up the full-court press begun in North Carolina and run the table, theoretically producing the slate of nominees that will give the party the best possible shot at taking the Senate.

The fault lines between the primary candidates in North Carolina were clearly drawn. Tillis was supported by Mitt Romney, Jeb Bush, and North Carolina's governor, Pat McCrory; Brannon by Paul and Senator Mike Lee; and the third-place finisher, evangelical pastor Mark Harris, by Mike Huckabee. The Chamber of Commerce, Karl Rove's Crossroads committees, and the Koch brothers' Americans for Prosperity poured millions of dollars into pro-Tillis and anti-Hagan ads in a strategic, coordinated assault. (Democratic committees also sought, unsuccessfully, to knock Tillis down.) Brannon had the support of FreedomWorks and the Tea Party Patriots. Harris was accused of soliciting campaign donations from the pulpit. Tillis's plan was not to engage them, but by the end he was attacking his Republican opponents to ensure the primary didn't go into a potentially draining second round.

But if the establishment approached this fight with overwhelming force, the Tea Party did not put up much of a fight, its well-funded national organs spending scant money against Tillis. And if Tillis represented the Republican establishment—something he denies, of course; it is not a label anyone embraces—he also represents the party's new, post-Tea Party mainstream. He was endorsed by National Right to Life and the National Rifle Association. As House speaker during a time when Republicans took over North Carolina's government for the first time since the 1896, he oversaw a dramatic slate of rightward policies, from tax cuts to voter ID, that he terms a "conservative revolution."

It was hard for opponents to paint Tillis as a liberal when actual liberals were picketing his initiatives on the steps of the statehouse in Raleigh on a regular basis. If this race is any indication, the "Republican civil war" storyline so beloved of pundits in recent years may have to be retired. The Tea Party has got what it wanted, in large part—a party that, out of fear or respect, meets its desire for conservative standard-bearers—and it has run out of easy targets like the ones it toppled in 2010 and 2012.

Tillis did some last-minute campaigning Monday night, mostly for the media's benefit, knocking on doors to get out the vote in a country-club neighborhood in Huntersville, a prosperous suburb that is in his legislative district. Yes, the candidate claiming not to represent the establishment was literally campaigning on a street of McMansions adjacent to a golf course, dressed in khakis, a Jos. A. Bank blazer, and black penny loafers. At the first house he approached, a 66-year-old construction project manager named Dan Mastrogianni told him, "I think you know we need a change, and I think you could be the right person."