Senator Lamar Alexander won the Tennessee GOP on Thursday, encouraging bipartisan Republican deal-cutters to defend their records –rather than run away from them.

The 74-year-old Former Education secretary is known for breaking the ranks in Senate, last year backing the controversial immigration bill, despite tea party opposition and intraparty war.  Many conservative Republicans derided the bill as “amnesty” for nearly 11 million undocumented immigrants, pushing some further right-sided critics to put their influence, and money, behind Lamar’s competitors.  

Despite a widening gap at the GOP Senators table, Alexander told POLITICO in a phone interview, “I determined I would defend and explain my record and not run away from it — and not change my voting pattern during these two years that I was running.” 

Some of this year’s competing Senators have taken the opportunity to run smear campaigns against Alexander, but unlike his adversaries, Alexander is choosing not run a scorched-Earth campaign. Rather than focus on building a negative campaign against his opponents, it made more sense to promote his record and defend his controversial votes — such as the immigration bill and an online sales tax measure.

With the GOP victories, Alexander stated it was time for the party to prove it can govern and resolve big issues like immigration. It is apparent that voters want action in the Senate, and this upcoming term could be the time to do it.

In hopes of the GOP taking back the White House in 2016, Alexander stated “it’s embarrassing for us not to deal with the problem, and I think we should do it in the next two years,” also stating he wasn’t sure how the politics would affect the upcoming term.