The term “Tea Party” (“taxed enough already”) is often attributed to CNBC commentator Rick Santelli, who made an impassioned on-air plea to citizens to rally in Chicago to oppose federal involvement in consumer mortgage relief shortly after President Obama took office in February 2009. Others claim that some conservatives were already organizing in small numbers even before Obama assumed office, united by growing discontent with the expansion of the federal government under George W. Bush.
The term “Tea Party” is a bit of a misnomer in that it does not describe an actual political party. Rather, it describes a loose coalition of state, local, and corporate-funded organizations who are united in a common set of core conservative beliefs, including negative views of the federal government, support for gun rights, opposition to taxes, opposition to Obama’s health care reform policies (“Obamacare”), and opposition to the bailout of Wall Street (Troubled Asset Relief Program [TARP]). Because the Tea Party has a recognizable set of ideological principles but lacks an organizational structure, it is best characterized as a political movement.
Political scientists generally view the Tea Party movement as a faction of the Republican Party rather than an independent entity. This is due, in part, to the political behavior of its self-identifiers. Most self-identified Tea Party members have voted Republican in previous presidential elections and have higher approval ratings of George W. Bush than other portions of the electorate (including Republicans in general). Forty-three percent of Republicans and 57 percent of self-identified Tea Partyers believe the federal government is a major threat to their freedom, while only 18 percent of Democrats do.
While many of the public spokespersons for the Tea Party movement emphasize fiscal issues and carefully avoid controversial social issues, there appears to be a great deal of overlap among those who identify with the Tea Party movement and the Republican Party’s contemporary evangelical Protestant base. In the months preceding the 2010 midterm elections, the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) conducted the American Values Survey and found that close to half of all self-identified Tea Party movement members also identified themselves with the Christian conservative movement. PRRI termed these individuals “teavangelical” voters. A recently completed panel study by Robert Putnam and David Campbell, both political scientists, found that individuals who were strong Republican Party identifiers in 2006 were those most likely to self-identify as Tea Partyers in 2011. Moreover, the strongest attitudinal correlate with Tea Party identification was a belief that religion should play a more prominent role in American politics; Tea Partyers did not exhibit a heightened level of concern about the economy relative to other Americans.
Moreover, the Tea Party’s political efforts are aimed primarily at the Republican Party (as opposed to “swing voters” or Democrats). Republican Party elites such as former vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin, former Republican National Committee chair Michael Steele, South Carolina senator Jim DeMint, and Minnesota representative Michele Bachmann are among those who claim an affiliation with the Tea Party movement. In the summer of 2010, the House of Representatives recognized the Tea Party Caucus, organized by Bachmann. According to Bachmann, the purpose of the group is to promote policy, rather than political goals. All fifty-three members of the caucus are Republicans.
Other organizations associated with the Tea Party movement include the Tea Party Express, Americans for Prosperity (AFP), the Tea Party Patriots, Glenn Beck’s 9/12 Project, FreedomWorks, the Our Country Deserves Better PAC, the Club for Growth, Tea Party Nation, and numerous state and local entities. The training sessions and talking points that activists receive from groups like AFP have led critics to characterize the movement as being composed of astroturfers, rather than as a true grassroots movement.
The Tea Party movement is best noted for its Tax Day protest in April 2009 and its organized attacks on Democratic members of Congress at town hall meetings with constituents during the summer of 2009. Most of these attacks focused on the Democrats’ proposed health care legislation, as opposed to the TARP legislation passed under the Bush administration or Obama’s stimulus package. However, over time, Republican members of Congress who voted for TARP found themselves the target of Tea Party-sponsored challenges during the primaries.
During the Campaign of 2012, the Tea Party movement was expected to be a strong influence on the Republican nomination process, particularly in early contests such as the Iowa caucus and the South Carolina primary, where the conservative, evangelical party base is sizable. However, no clearly identifiable Tea Party coalition of voters, and no clearly preferred Tea Party candidate, emerged from these contests. Undoubtedly, those who self-identify with the Tea Party made up a sizable share of the voting public in the 2010 midterms. However, midterms tend to attract an electorate that is more affluent, better educated, more white, older, and more likely to be married than the population in general—demographics that are very highly correlated with the traits associated with the core elements of the Tea Party base. Presidential elections attract a far more diverse electorate. Voters in these elections are less white, younger, less affluent, and less educated, all of which are unfavorable for the Tea Party.
Not only are midterm electorates more conducive to Tea Party influence, but the overall political environment may be less favorable for the Tea Party more generally. Nate Silver has noted CNN polling data from March 2011 that confirmed a trend of growing unfavorable sentiment toward the Tea Party movement (while favorable sentiment is stable, or down slightly), suggesting that as the Tea Party has taken a more visible role in American politics, it has become more disliked by the public. Putnam and Campbell find that among the general public, the Tea Party is generally viewed unfavorably (even Muslims and atheists, two groups that are generally disliked, are more popular). Thus, Republican candidates with strong Tea Party support, particularly in presidential races, may alienate independent and swing voters, given the rising negative perceptions of this group.
As we move into the 2016 campaign season, three Republican candidates appear to have the closest affinity with Tea Party voters: Kentucky senator Rand Paul, who delivered the Tea Party response to President Obama’s 2013 State of the Union Address; Texas senator Ted Cruz, who has a reputation for embracing Tea Party positions; and Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal, currently losing traction in his campaign bid for the party nomination. Florida senator Marco Rubio has enjoyed Tea Party support in the past, but lately his stance on immigration reform has prompted a change in that relationship. Former Florida governor Jeb Bush, while not typically associated with the Tea Party brand, has recently stressed his conservatism, publically stating that he is the “most conservative” of the Bush family, assuring party supporters that he is noticeably more conservative than both his brother and his father. This is not to say that Gov. Bush is motivated by a desire to woo the Tea Party faction, but it is evident that he seeks ideological credibility from the Republican Party’s right, which has been for the last seven years significantly influenced by the presence of the Tea Party. Perhaps even more interesting, a recent article for Politico by Michael Lind argues that a portion of the support for Donald Trump in the early stages of the 2015–2016 campaign season stems from Tea Party elements more populist than libertarian. Mr. Lind’s argument stems from the incongruity between some of Mr. Trump’s positions regarding health care and taxes and the ostensibly libertarian principles within the Tea Party faction. In effect, Trump’s more flexible approach to these issues seems to be overlooked by his more conservative supporters, who, in the argument forwarded by Lind, are drawn to his populist rhetoric and the more nationalistic tenor of his campaign to this point. Again, as with the case of Gov. Bush, this is not to argue that Mr. Trump is the answer to the Tea Party’s aspirations, but it does add new insight into the complexities behind the Tea Party movement.
Still remaining a faction rather than a formal political party, and not enjoying the clout that it appeared to have in the 2010 midterm elections, the Tea Party nevertheless remains a noteworthy and potentially influential element in presidential politics, particularly if an election promises to be close. In the age of the Internet and the twenty-four-hour news cycle, groups like the Tea Party are less likely to fizzle out the way they might have thirty years ago, and it would seem that the Tea Party will continue to play a role in the way Republican candidates address the issues as they compete for their party’s nomination.
Balz, Dan. “What the Tea Party Is—and Isn’t.” Washington Post, September 10, 2011.
Campbell, David E., and Robert D. Putnam. “Crashing the Tea Party.” New York Times, August 16, 2011.
CNBC. “Rick Santelli’s Shout Heard ’Round the World.” February 22, 2009. http://www.cnbc.com/id/29283701/Rick_Santelli_s_Shout_Heard_Round_the_World. Accessed October 6, 2015.
Fox News. “Tea Party Cautious Toward Congressional Caucus.” July 22, 2010. http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/07/22/grassroots-tea-party-cautious-caucus-capitol-hill. Accessed October 6, 2015.
Gaynor, Tim. “Ron Paul, Herman Cain Win Tea Party Poll to Run against Obama.” Reuters, February 27, 2011. http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/02/27/us-teaparty-idUSTRE71Q2SM20110227. Accessed October 6, 2015.
Herszenhorn, David. “Congress Now Has a ‘Tea Party Caucus.’?” Washington Post, “The Caucus” section, July 20, 2010.
Jones, Robert B., and Daniel Cox. “Old Alignments, Emerging Fault Lines: Religion in the 2010 Election and Beyond: Findings from the 2010 Post-Election American Values Survey.” Public Religion Research Institute, November 2010. http://publicreligion.org/site/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/2010-Post-election-American-Values-Survey-Report.pdf.
Lind, Michael. “How Trump Exposed the Tea Party: The Proof Is In: the GOP Base Isn’t Small-Government Libertarian; It’s Old-Fashioned Populist.” Politico, September 3, 2015. http://www.politico.com/magazine/. Accessed October 6, 2015.
Pew Center for People and the Press. “Distrust, Discontent, Anger and Partisan Rancor: The People and Their Government.” April 18, 2010. http://people-press.org/2010/04/18/distrust-discontent-anger-and-partisan-rancor/. Accessed October 6, 2015.
Silver, Nate. “Poll Shows More Americans Have Unfavorable Views of Tea Party.” New York Times, FiveThirtyEight blog, March 30, 2011.
Washington Post. “What Is the Tea Party? A Primer.” September 15, 2010. http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2010/09/what-is-the-tea-party-a-primer.html. Accessed October 6, 2015.