After 29 years as the senator from Pennsylvania, Arlen Specter was voted out by Democratic primary voters yesterday in favor of a two-term House member, Rep. Joe Sestak, who currently represents the state’s 7th congressional district. Sestak will now face Republican and former U.S. Rep. Pat Toomey for the seat in November.

Five Hundred miles away in the Kentucky senate race, Republican tea party candidate Rand Paul bested Trey Grayson, the secretary of state who won the endorsement of Sen. Mitch McConnell, the top Republican in the Senate. Paul, the son of Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, will face Democrat Jack Conway, the state’s attorney general, for the seat in November.

In Arkansas, moderate Democrat Blanche Lincoln must continue to fight for her Senate seat, as results from the state’s Democratic primary have found no clear majority against Lt. Gov. Bill Halter for the party’s nomination. The two will face-off in a runoff election on June 8th.

Other notable results:

Democrat Mark Critz won a special election for the open seat of late Congressman John Murtha for the remaining seven months of Murthas term for Pennsylvania’s 12th Congressional District. Critz recently held a fundraiser at Lounge 201 in Washington D.C., according to Party Times list of invites. In attendance were Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman Chris Van Hollen, and the Pennsylvania Democratic Delegation.

Democrat U.S. Rep. Paul Kanjorski, of the 11th congressional district of Pennsylvania, moves on to battle his Republican challenger, Hazleton, Pa., mayor Lou Barletta in the November ballot. According to Party Time invites, Kanjorski has held eight fundraisers since the beginning of the year, the latest was a May 12 fundraiser at the Sonoma Restaurant and Wine Bar, where for $5,000, people could host the event and for $1,000 they could attend. There is only one invite in Party Times files for Lou Barletta, an October 2008 fundraiser at the Capital Grille.

Republican Congressman Charlie Dent easily defeated tea party challenger Mat Benol and will face Democrat John Callahan for Pennsylvania’s 15th Congressional District in November. Since January, Dent has held 10 fundraisers, according to Party Time invites. He also has a fundraiser planned for May 25th, to celebrate his Big 50th Birthday with special guests. For $1,500, political action committees can participate and for $750 individuals can wish him a happy half-century.

Republican Rick Crawford won the GOP nominee for the 1st congressional district of Arkansas against Princella Smith, who at 26, hoped to become the youngest member of congress. Crawford faces a Democratic challenger who won’t be decided until a June 8th run-off election. Contenders will likely include Tim Wooldridge and Chad Causey.

In a week of longtime incumbents being nixed by their own party, all eyes are on the May 18 Pennsylvania primary as Arlen Specter, a Democrat-turned-Republican-turned Democrat, fights to keep his office for a sixth term against challenger Rep. Joe Sestak and 13-term incumbent Democratic Rep. Paul Kanjorski tries to beat back newcomer Corey O’Brien in the state’s 11th Congressional District.

Also sitting precariously is Sen. Blanche Lincoln, who faces off against Lt. Gov. Bill Halter, in the Arkansas primary on May 18.

Last Tuesday, Rep. Alan Mollohan, D-W.Va., lost his bid for a 15th term for the 1st congressional district to state senator Mike Oliverio in the West Virginia Democratic primary. On Sunday, Utah Sen. Bob Bennett lost his bid for a fourth term in the state Republican Primary, in a victory for tea party activists.

Bennett and Mollohan had both raised far more than their challengers, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Mollohan had raised nearly $800,000 to Oliverios $320,000, while Bennett had raised $3.9 million, ten times more than the next most-funded candidate.

In Pennsylvania, Specter has so far raised more than $15.4 million, while Democratic challenger Joe Sestak has raised nearly $3.6 million. The Democratic primary winner will face off against Republican Pat Toomey, who has so far raised $8.2 million. Meanwhile in the House race, Kanjorski has raised nearly $1.2 million compared to O’Brien’s nearly $358,000.

According to Party Times invites, Kanjorski has held eight fundraisers since the beginning of the year, the latest was a May 12 fundraiser at the Sonoma Restaurant and Wine Bar, where for $5,000, people could host the event and for $1,000 they could attend.

Toomey has held three fundraisers this year, according to Party Time. The most recent was a April 27th fundraiser at Johnny’s Half Shell hosted by Senator Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, where for $2,000 political action committees could co-host the event, and for $500, individuals could attend. The latest invites in Party Time for Specter and Sestak only date back to 2009.

Pennsylvania election results wont be known until next week, but according to early unofficial results of about 2,000 ballots, Specter was leading Sestak, 55 percent to 45 percent. Kanjorski was also leading in early votes of about 1,000 ballots with 50 percent of the vote to OBriens 33 percent.

In Arkansas, Lincoln has raised more than $8.7 million while Halter has raised $2.6 million.

With the May 18 Democratic primary fast approaching, candidates for the Pennsylvania Senate seat have been fundraising with intensity.

Last month, CNN founder Ted Turner hosted a fundraiser for Democratic Sen. Arlen Specter in Atlanta. In this current election cycle, from 2005 to 2010, Specter has raised more than $13 million.

Democratic challenger Joe Sestak has raised more than $3 million this year, with more than $5 million in the bank.

Specter and Sestak have not yet released their fundraising totals for the first quarter. But Specter leads the group with the highest amount of cash on hand, at more than $8 million. Both candidates receive most of their contributions from in-state donors.

Meanwhile, the Republican candidate Pat Toomey is experiencing his campaign’s most successful fundraising quarter so far. The challenger raised $2.3 million in 2010 alone, with $4 million cash on hand. Toomey’s donations are almost evenly divided between in-state and out-of-state contributors.

Last month, Toomey held a fundraiser at a local restaurant in Chambersburg, Pa. Toomey was critizied by some for inviting numerous corporate executives to a fundraiser in DC.

The Cook Political Report calls the Pennsylvania Senate race as a “toss up.”

Rep. John Larson, Democrat from Connecticut, had a busy day today. In his datebook was this “insurance industry” fundraising breakfast. And he was also one of four lawmakers to introduce this bill, the 2009 Fair Elections Now Act, which would bring public financing to federal elections.

Supporters argue that if this bill passes, it would make the need for breakfasts like this one mostly moot. Lawmakers who participate would qualify for public funds to run their races if they first raised a set amount of small contributions from their community and agreed to take no large contributions from wealthy interests. Such candidates would get a four to one match on the small donations they raise up to a limit.

Trolling through the Party Time database, we quickly see that all four sponsors of this legislation have a lot of fundraising parties on their calendars. Here are Larson’s. Sen. Arlen Specter got special mention from us the other day for having a dozen fundraising parties scheduled for March alone. Sen. Dick Durbin has these parties for himself, but as a congressional leader also appears at many fundraisers for other lawmakers. And here are some parties for Rep. Walter Jones.

So the question before us is–are these lawmakers tired of all this partying?

In the whirlwind of fundraising parties this month–as of today we’ve collected 427 invitations for this month and counting–Sen. Arlen Specter stands above his peers, with a dozen parties scheduled in March and more beyond. Specter faces a tough race in 2010, as Josh Marshall pointed out today over at Talkingpointsmemo.com, so it’s no wonder he’s out fundraising early.

Among the lobbyists and organizations that are throwing the parties for Specter are the National Association of Credit Unions; US Oncology and the Orbeek Group, a fundraising firm; McAllister & Quinn, Washington uberlawyer and lobbyist C. Boyden Gray; law and lobbying firm Blank Rome; the American Association of Railroads; Mark Heilbrun, a lobbyist for the firm Jenner & Block; Morrie Amitay, former director of AIPAC and Washington PAC, a pro-Israel PAC; and Mel Goodweather of the Livingston Group.

As my colleague Bill Allison over at Real Time Investigations often says, the invitations we post here at Party Time are like an “early warning system” for who is trying to raise the most cash, and from whom. When we finally get to see reports from lawmakers on how much they raised in the first quarter, it will be interesting to take a look at Specter’s numbers–and see who gave him contributions around the dates of the fundraisers.  Of course this task will be difficult because senators are not required to file their campaign finance reports electronically, meaning we’ll likely have to page through PDF reports until the Federal Election Commission rekeys the data. That’s why Sunlight advocates the passage of S. 482.)

Stay tuned for more analysis of March fundraising parties….