Stars of the Tea Party

Christine O'Donnell has been catapulted to fame after winning the Republican nomination to represent Delaware in the Senate, beating 30-year party veteran Mike Castle. The former political lobbyist was backed by Tea Party activists, as well as Sarah Palin. Along with the usual small government, pro-gun policies, O'Donnell is best known for her belief that masturbation is a sin. A decade ago, as leader of a Christian lobby group, Saviour's Alliance for Lifting the Truth, she told a TV interview: 'The Bible says that lust in your heart is committing adultery. So you can't masturbate without lust.' She now faces the Democrat candidate, Chris Coons. Many of his supporters were hoping for an O'Donnell primary win as polls show her hardline views could deliver the Democrats a state they had more or less written off
Photograph: Mark Wilson/Getty Images

Carl Paladino, another Tea Party-backed Republican, will be the party's candidate to become governor of New York in November. The 64-year-old businessman was a Democrat for 30 years, but now espouses a series of rightwing views, including a massive cutback in public spending. A fierce critic of the planned Islamic centre two blocks from the site of the September 11 attacks in New York City, Paladino said he would 'make the site a war memorial instead of a monument to those who attacked our country'. He is vehemently pro-gun and, according to an aide, carries one 'everywhere it is legal'. Paladino has faced criticism after it emerged he forwarded a series of emails to friends and colleagues using racial slurs to target Barack Obama. It has also emergered that he has a 10-year-old love child following an affair Photograph: Don Heupel/AP

Until O'Donnell's victory in Delaware, Joe Miller was the Tea Party's best-known primary victor after he ousted Lisa Murkowski, the incumbent senator for Sarah Palin's home state of Alaska. Murkowski conceded defeat in the Republican primary this month and Miller is now almost certain to be voted into office. The 43-year-old lawyer, a veteran of the first Gulf War, will be one of the most rightwing candidates in November's polls. As well as calling for a cull of government activity, including the abolition of the federal education department, Miller disputes the scientific evidence for manmade global warming, calling it 'dubious at best'. Miller has been endorsed by Palin, who had notably frosty relations with Murkowski Photograph: Michael Dinneen/AP

Ken Buck came from rank outsider status to edge out the far better known Jane Norton to become the Republican candidate for Colorado's Senate seat in August. A robust, plain-speaking campaigner who worked with Dick Cheney in the 1986 Iran-Contra investigation, Buck told voters they should choose him over Norton in part because of his footwear. 'I have cowboy boots, they have real bullshit on them.' Despite playing up his ties to the Tea Party movement, Buck was recorded during the primary campaign criticising the fringe views of some adherents, notably the so-called birthers who claim Barack Obama was not born in the US Outside one election event Buck said: 'Will you tell those dumbasses at the Tea Party to stop asking questions about birth certificates while I'm on the camera?' Photograph: Bill Clark/Roll Call/Getty Images

Tom Emmer, a state congressman with ties to the Tea Party, won official Republican backing to run for Minnesota governor in part due to Sarah Palin’s endorsement on the eve of the state convention, giving him a huge boost in his primary campaign. Palin made a personal appeal to delegates, calling Emmer 'a patriotic fiscally conservative hockey dad' on her Facebook page. Her intervention apparently prompted the incumbent governor, Tim Pawlenty, to follow suit and back Emmer. Among Emmer's stated views is a call to water down Minnesota's drunk driving laws, and calling into question the need for a minumum wage Photograph: Jim Mone/AP

Nikki Haley, a Christian convert of Sikh origin, overcame the odds in a state with a history of racial tensions to win the Republican nomination for South Carolina's governor. If elected Haley would be the first woman in the post. The businesswoman endured a dirty campaign, which saw one state senator refer to her as a 'raghead' at a public meeting, while there were two separate allegations against her of marital infidelity, both unsubstantiated. While all this has let Haley portray herself as a political innocent, an editorial in South Carolina's main newspaper, The State, was scathing about her personal style in the state legislature. It said: 'What she doesn’t acknowledge is that she has adopted ... habits that have so enraged lawmakers - misrepresenting the facts, misrepresenting her proposed 'solutions' to problems real or fabricated, refusing to accept victory and going out of his way to antagonise the legislature. Or that legislative leaders simply do not like her' Photograph: Brett Flashnick/AP

Marco Rubio, the telegenic son of Cuban exile parents, has become something of a pin-up for Tea Party activists since winning the Republican nomination for Florida's Senate seat. The 39-year-old lawyer faces a tricky battle against both Kendrick Meek, the Democrat, and Florida's Republican governor, Charlie Crist, who is running an an independent and now styling himself as the real maverick. Rubio also faces some suspicion from Tea Party activists after he expressed reservations at Arizona's tough new anti-immigrant law. The head of south Florida's Tea Party movement, Everett Wilkinson, expressed his worries: 'When you send a politician to Washington you're always worried whether you're going to get the same guy back.' Photograph: Joe Raedle/Getty Images

With Palin and O'Donnell, Sharron Angle is the third part of the Tea Party's trinity of leading female candidates. The Republican choice for Nevada's Senate seat holds views that have raised eyebrows, for example her insistence that abortion should be refused even in cases of incest or when the mother's life is in danger. Another climate change sceptic, Angle is a self-professed member of the Oath Keepers anti-government group and has openly hinted at the idea of an armed uprising against Washington. She said: 'What is a little bit disconcerting and concerning is the inability for sporting goods stores to keep ammunition in stock. That tells me the nation is arming. What are they arming for if it isn't that they are so distrustful of their government? That's why I look at [my election campaign] as almost an imperative. If we don't win at the ballot box, what will be the next step?'
Photograph: Ethan Miller/Getty Images

Dan Maes, who in May won the Republican primary to contest Colorado's governorship, is so much of a maverick that some of his views have unnerved not just party officials but even certain Tea Party activists. The 49-year-old businessman will take on Denver's Democratic mayor, John Hickenlooper, in November's poll, and the pair have already exchanged blows about, of all things, public cycle hire networks. Last month Maes warned supporters in a speech that Denver's new B-Cycle hire scheme and other environmental transport policies introduced by Hickenlooper formed part of a wider UN plot to enslave the US. 'These aren't just warm fuzzy ideas from the mayor. These are very specific strategies that are dictated to us by this United Nations programme that mayors have signed on to,' he said Photograph: Ed Andrieski/AP

Rand Paul is a second generation political maverick, the son of Texas Republican congressman and sometime presidential hopeful Ron Paul. In an early Tea Party triumph in May, Rand - short of Randal - saw off Republican establishment favourite Trey Grayson in the primary for Kentucky's Senate seat. A would-be slasher of government regulations, Paul would like to abolish the Federal Reseve and education department. He summed up his view as: 'Things that are non-violent shouldn't be against the law.' Paul's libertarian views landed him in hot water when, quizzed about the Civil Rights Act, he appeared to indicate that private businesses such as restaurants should be free to turn away customers on the grounds of race Photograph: Ed Reinke/AP

At 29, former marine Jesse Kelly is now the Republican candidate to become one of Arizona's Congress representatives. While he is not yet officially endorsed by Sarah Palin, the Tea Party heroine praised Kelly in a joint Fox News TV appearance, saying: 'I don’t feel worthy to lace his combat boots.' Photograph: www.votejessekelly.com