Los Angeles ? Doubters who thought the tea party would fade away can forget it. More than 70 of its favored candidates are on Nov. 2 ballots, and nearly three dozen are locked in competitive House races, according to a state-by-state analysis by The Associated Press.

From the hundreds of conservative activists who took up the cause in races this year, these candidates — mostly Republicans — emerged to capture nominations and are running with the support of loosely organized tea party groups that are furious at the government.

Some of the candidates are political newcomers who have struggled to organize and raise money and have little chance of winning election. In some states, tea party groups have been divided over whether to even back candidates or become active in campaigns.

But about 35 candidates appear to be waging campaigns that have put them ahead or within striking distance of their opponents, according to the AP analysis.

Candidates with tea party ties are favored to win in Republican-leaning districts in Indiana and South Carolina. Several are running strong in rural districts in the West and the suburbs of several major cities. Three candidates aligned with the tea party are in tight races in Michigan, which has the second highest unemployment rate in the nation at 13.1 percent.

The tea party’s legions of backers have Democrats fearing that 2010 could be the reverse of 2008, when 15 million first-time voters helped the Democrats win control of the White House as well as Congress.

Many Republicans are concerned, too.

Jim Bennett, who saw his father, Utah Sen. Bob Bennett, dispatched by tea party activists who flooded the state Republican convention in May, described a movement motivated and energized “to burn down anything that had anything to do with Washington.”

“I’ve decided the Republican Party in Utah doesn’t exist anymore — it’s the tea party and the Democrats,” Jim Bennett, who managed his father’s campaign, said months after the senator was defeated.

The deep vein of conservative anger was there in 2008, but “it’s taken a different turn now that the Democrats have the White House,” says Larry Grisolano, a media consultant to President Barack Obama’s campaign. “Now they have something to be against.”

Most of the House candidates with tea party support are unknown outside their home districts: a rancher, a pilot, a pizzeria owner, doctors and war veterans. Their political experience ranges from first-time candidates to House incumbents who have become closely identified with the movement, including Republican Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota.

How much impact the movement will have in Congress next year depends in part on how many of the candidates win. More than a half-dozen tea party-backed Senate candidates, including Florida’s Marco Rubio, Nevada’s Sharron Angle, Colorado’s Ken Buck and Alaska’s Joe Miller, are in competitive races or even pulling ahead of their rivals.

They are relying on support of the movement’s dedicated backers.

“There is nothing that will keep them from turning out,” said Democratic pollster Andre Pineda, who has advised the Democratic National Committee this year. “The real enthusiasm gap is between tea party folks and everybody else,” Pineda said. On Election Day, “they will be there.”