Rove The temptation for politicians and political analysts is to draw broad, sweeping conclusions from election results.

But most election outcomes defy being reduced to a single cause.

Campaigns are a complicated mix of issues, personalities and impressions. Voters settle on a candidate after using an alg orithm that varies from person- to-person, contest- to-con- test, and year-to- year.

The May 18 election results reflect an anti-Washington, anti- Obama, anti-establishment feeling among voters, but they also reflect the candidates’ individual winning messages.

Take Kentucky’s GOP primary, where ophthalmologist and tea party activist Rand Paul won the Republican nomination to replace retiring Sen. Jim Bunning. Paul’s victory was a rejection of the Republican establishment, shrieked observers.

He defeated Secretary of State Trey Grayson, who was supported by the state’s senior senator, Mitch Mc- Connell. But Paul won with support from party regulars Cathy Bailey (finance chairman for George W. Bush and McConnell), Kentucky State Senate President David Williams, and Bunning.

Paul’s emphasis on fiscal issues trumped Grayson’s emphasis on biography. The sluggish economy, combined with Obama’s budget-busting agenda, sparked a populist reaction Paul tapped with attacks on deficits, spending and special interests.

He has a challenge: Being magnanimous often comes hard to first-time candidates. But his big, 24-point victory margin — like those of the GOP’s Senate standard bearers in Pennsylvania and Arkansas — will make it easier to unite the party.

Pennsylvania’s Democratic primary did see a an incumbent lose. But here, incumbency was less important than lack of principle. The defeat of Republican turned-Democrat Arlen Specter shows opportunistic politicians are rarely trusted or accepted.

The GOP would be better off if Specter had won. The weaknesses that became apparent in the primary would have doomed him in the fall. The race now, pitting former GOP Congressman Pat Toomey against Congressman Joe Sestak, will be among the country’s hardest fought races.

Obama’s endorsement similarly failed to carry Arkansas Sen. Blanche Lincoln to a decisive victory. She now faces the state’s liberal lieutenant governor, Bill Halter, in a June 8 runoff.

Her predicament shows Democrats, especially in border and Southern states, are badly split over the Obama agenda. If Obama’s vaunted political operations couldn’t deliver for Specter and Lincoln, what does it say about the fall?

The Democratic theory that voter anger would fade or burn out once healthcare reform passed was wrong-headed and was undermined on May 18. That anger remains and likely will persist through the November elections.

Karl Rove is former senior advisor to President George W. Bush.