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WASHINGTON — Tea Party sentiment is pulling the Republican presidential contest to the right as would-be candidates appeal for support from the GOP’s conservative base.

Tea Party litmus tests were dominant 2012 themes as most of the presidential contenders addressed the nation’s largest annual conservative conference, which ended Saturday.

Competing for straw-poll votes from thousands of activists — who gave libertarian Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, first place — the potential candidates sought to outdo one another in expressing their disgust with a bloated government in Washington.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich demanded the elimination of the Environmental Protection Agency. Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty urged Congress to vote down a higher debt limit. South Dakota Sen. John Thune accused the Obama administration of “trying to take over the Internet.”

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney asked the youthful convention crowd “to believe in the Constitution as it was written and intended by the founders.”

In line with their Tea Party-inspired focus on fiscal conservatism, the 2012 contenders expressed strong support for a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution, repeal of “Obama- care” and steep cuts in federal spending like those proposed by House Republicans last week at the insistence of Tea Party-backed lawmakers.

Matt Kibbe of FreedomWorks, a Tea Party umbrella group, told delegates to the Conservative Political Action Conference, or CPAC, that the Tea Party had assumed government power in “a hostile takeover. But these are now the issues that define the Republican Party in Washington, D.C.”

At the same time, though, this shift could complicate Republicans’ efforts to build on recent election gains. Potentially at risk is the party’s continued hold on many of the independent swing voters who were keys to the GOP triumph in last fall’s elections, and even support from some moderate Republican voters.

Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, another potential 2012 contender, waved off such fears in a CPAC speech Saturday. He dismissed the idea that “the Tea Party is a problem for Republicans” as “the left whistling past the graveyard.”

But moderate Republican lawmakers are already worried about a backlash against the increasingly sharp budget cuts being proposed at the insistence of their newly elected Tea Party colleagues.

The latest national polls hint at the Tea Party’s potential to fracture the GOP base.

Some delegates at the conservative gathering complained privately that abortion and other social issues, dominant CPAC topics in the past, were being played down in an effort to paper over strains inside the conservative movement.