The Senate Conservatives Fund, which is trying to oust Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell in the 2014 elections, on Friday said the Kentucky Republican is to blame for the GOP’s failure to take control of the Senate in 2012.

Matt Hoskins, the fund’s executive director, said Republicans remain in the minority in the upper chamber not because voters are rejecting conservative Tea Party candidates, but because establishment Republicans like McConnell are discouraging more conservatives from running.