Feb. 29, 2012
The Tea Party in the House: The Shape of Things to Come?
Andrew D. McNitt
Eastern Illinois University
Presented in Portland, Oregon at the 2012 Meeting of the Western Political Science Association
Abstract
To what extent does the Tea Party represent the future of the Republican Party in the
House of Representatives? This paper examines the relationship between the members of the
Tea Party Caucus and non-Tea Party freshmen and senior Republicans in the House. It looks at
how differences in prior career, constituency and marginality are related to membership in
these groups and uses CQ roll call results to examine the extent to which the voting patterns of
these groups are different. Although the press treats the Tea Party as a distinct faction within
the Republican Party the differences in demographics and voting behavior are modest at best.
Members of the Tea Party caucus are, however, electoral more secure than other Republicans.
Consequently, its relative influence within the Republican Party will either remain the same or
increase if the GOP suffers significant losses in the 2012 election.
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On Feb. 19, 2009 Rick Santelli of CNBC attacked President Obama’s mortgage relief plan on the air
calling for a Chicago “Tea Party” in protest. Subsequently conservative activists appropriated the name
when they organized a first set of relatively small public demonstrations on February 27, 2009.
Extensive coverage by the conservative media of these events produced even larger demonstrations on
April 15, 2009. In the following months multiple organizations emerged which incorporated the Tea
Party name and existing conservative groups promoted Tea Party themes (Williamson et al. 2011). In
2010 Tea Party activists sought the Republican nomination for congressional office and in some cases
successfully challenged Republican incumbents for nomination. On July 21, 2010, after receiving official
recognition from the Republican Party in the House Representatives, 51 members of the House formed
the Tea Party Caucus which then selected Michele Bachmann as its leader (Lorber 2010). Republican
victories in November’s election gave that party control of the House of Representatives in 2010 and
subsequently increased Tea Party membership to 66 individuals in the House some of whom do not
belong to the formal caucus.
The sudden appearance of the Tea Party raises a number of questions. This paper attempts to answer
three: How do Tea Party members differ from other Republicans elected in 2010 and from more senior
members of the Republican Party in the House? Has the Tea Party become a distinct faction within the
Republican Party? And how is the Tea Party likely to fare in coming elections?
Demographic Differences
The Tea Party Caucus bears some similarity to southern Democrats who previously constituted a
distinct faction within their party. The Tea Party Caucus, however, as yet has a limited presence in the
Senate, is ideologically rather than regionally based, and takes an extreme rather than a centrist
position. Early analysis of voters who consider themselves members of the Tea Party finds that the vast
majority of them are conservative Republicans or independents who lean Republican (DiMaggio 2011,
Williamson et al. 2011). DiMaggio (2011 213-219) argues based on an analysis of ADA scores of
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members of the Tea Party Caucus in the 111th Congress and an examination of votes cast in early 2011
that the Tea Party Caucus is only slightly more conservative than other Republicans. According to him
the claim that the Tea Party in Congress constitutes an unusually conservative faction is wrong. Rather
he argues that the conservatism of the Tea Party simply reflects the rightward shift of the entire
Republican Party in the House.
The minimum group hypothesis (Tajfel 1970, 1982) argues that even trivial differences between
groups can, when used as a basis for categorization, result in significant differentiation and hostility to
out groups. Consequently, the mere formation of the Tea Party Caucus in the House provides the basis
for future differentiation. The formation of a caucus, however, is not sufficient by itself to create a
faction. There are over 300 caucuses in Congress most of whom are not explicitly partisan like the Tea
Party (Davidson et al. 2012). Further, the Tea Party is not even the largest explicitly conservative caucus
in the House. The Republican Study Committee (RSC 2011) with 169 members many of whom also
belong the Tea party is three times as large (RSC 2011 ).1 The Tea Party is, however, unique in that it has
affiliated itself with a mass based social movement which has challenged the renomination of otherwise
conservative incumbent Republicans and now issues separate responses to the president’s State of the
Union address. Consequently the question is how sharp is the distinction between members of the Tea
Party and other Republicans in the House.
Among the theoretical models which can be used to examine the relationship between the Tea Party
and other Republicans in the House are constituency differences, the effect of electoral marginality on
voting, the social background and political career. Constituency differences have often been related to
voting in Congress (MacRae, 1958; Miller and Stokes 1963; Mayhew 1974). The conservative nature of
the Tea Party means that its members should represent more conservative constituencies. Specifically
they should represent southern, less urbanized districts with fewer blue collar voters, fewer government
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employees, fewer minority members, and districts where Obama received the smaller proportion of
votes.
The marginality hypothesis argues that candidates from electorally marginal constituencies are more
moderate than those from one party districts. The decline then of marginal districts is seen as one
possible explanation for increasing ideological polarization in the House as a whole and for increasing
conservatism in the Republican Party in particular. Consequently, members of the Tea Party, who are
arguably among the most conservative members of the House, should come from safe rather than
competitive districts. This assumption, however, has been challenged by scholars (Fiorina 1974; Bafumi
and Herron 2010) who argue that even in marginal districts representatives reflect the more extreme
views of their fellow partisans.
Legislators are not simply influenced by their districts; they also have their own opinions.
Consequently, the social backgrounds of members the legislature should also influence their tendency
to join the Tea Party. Specifically, occupation and religion may also have an influence. The principal
occupational difference for Republican representatives is having a business or other background.
Studies of voters find that the business middle class has the more conservative attitudes than other
middle class voters (Prysby 1979). Consequently, one would expect members of the Tea Party caucus
to be more likely to have prior business experience. Religion, on the other, hand is also related to
political attitudes. Evangelical Protestants are generally more conservative than mainline Protestants
and Catholics (Wald 1987; DiMaggio 2012). Campbell and Putnam (2011) report that Tea Party activists
are more religiously conservative. Consequently, members of the Tea Party Caucus should also be more
likely to be Evangelical Protestants than other Republicans.
Finally, students of political careers (Schlesinger 1994) argue that office holders are office oriented
while activists are policy oriented. The Tea Party then can be explained as what happens when more
policy oriented activist manage to win an occasional election. In short, to use Wilson’s (1962) terms
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when the more ideologically oriented amateur activists somehow manage to become officeholders. This
is, however, a result which is inherently unstable. Over time such office holders will either have to adopt
an office seeking orientation to survive or pursue policy goals which will shorten their tenure. In the
case of the Tea Party what this suggests is that members of the Tea Party are more likely to have served
shorter terms in the House and to have had no previous legislative experience before being elected to
the House. The distrust of Tea Party activists of Republican incumbents who are accused of excessive
moderation as a consequence of longer service echoes this theme (See Pear 2011).
To test these hypotheses information was collected on all current Republican members of the House.
Next, the Republican members of the House were divided into three groups, Tea Party Republicans,
freshmen not belonging to the Tea Party and senior Republicans not belonging to the Tea Party.
Pearson’s correlation was then used to determine the extent to which members of each of the three
groups differed from other Republicans. The variables included were region (South v. non-South), %
blue collar, % white collar, % government employee, Obama’s % vote in 2008, the member’s % vote in
2010, prior legislative service, prior business career, and Evangelical religious affiliation.2 This
information was obtained from the 2010 and 2012 Almanacs of American politics.
Table 1 presents the correlations between the independent variables and group membership. The
constituency hypothesis receives some support. Table 1 shows that members of the Tea Party are
significantly more likely to come from the South and consequently to represent districts with a
somewhat larger percentage of African American constituents than other Republicans. They are also
more likely to come from districts where President Obama received fewer votes in 2008 than other
Republicans. In other respects, however, the Tea Party members represent districts which are not
significantly different from other Republicans. The electoral marginality hypothesis receives limited
support as well although most of the difference is the result of the relatively small number of freshmen
members of the Tea Party Caucus. Tea Party membership is significantly associated with a higher vote in
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2010. Their average vote of 67.7% was about the same as the 68.03% received by senior non Tea Party
Republicans As for personal characteristics, Tea Party members are no more likely to be Evangelicals,
lack prior legislative service, come from business backgrounds or have served a shorter time in the
House.
(Insert Table1 about here)
Freshmen who are not members of the Tea Party unsurprisingly have shorter service in the House
and received a smaller percentage of the vote in 2010. They are, however, significantly more likely to
represent districts where Obama received a higher percentage of the vote than other Republicans; a fact
which is consistent with Democratic midterm losses occurring disproportionately in the more
competitive seats. Freshmen also are marginally less likely (p<.10) to represent districts which have
large Hispanic or large white collar populations.
Senior Republicans who do not belong to the Tea Party are significantly more likely to have served
longer in the House and to have received a larger percentage of the vote in 2010 than other
Republicans. They are also significantly less likely to be Evangelicals and significantly less likely to
represent constituencies with larger African American populations than other Republicans. They are
also marginally (p<.10) less likely to represent constituencies with higher percentages of blue collar
workers or to be southern.
To summarize, the most important differences between the Tea Party and other Republicans in the
House is its regional southern base and its representation of districts where Obama is particularly weak.
The Tea Party, however, is not simply the southern wing of the Republican Party. The majority of
southern Republicans in the House, 57%, do not belong to the Tea Party and 31% of the membership of
the Tea Party comes from outside the South.
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Differences in Roll Call Voting
Another way to determine if the Tea Party constitutes a unique faction within the Republican Party is
to look at how it votes on legislative proposals. There have been a number of attempts to examine
legislative voting patterns. After analyzing congressional voting between 1953 and 1973 Aage Clausen
(1977) found that there were five separate dimensions to roll call voting, government management,
social welfare, agricultural assistance, civil liberties and international involvement. Barbara Sinclair
(1982) used a similar method of classification in her analysis of congressional voting between 1925 and
1978. As Congress became more polarized, Poole and Daniels (1985) found that a single liberal
conservative dimension accounted for 80% of congressional votes cast between 1959 and 1980 and that
a smaller second, party loyalty dimension accounted for only an additional 6% of votes. Poole (1988)
also argues that congressional voting in general can be understood in terms of this single dimension.
Clausen and Wilcox (1991), however, responded that although there may be an overall dimension, that
other distinct dimensions still exist. They also argued that two new dimensions, international
involvement and agricultural subsidies had emerged during the 1980s.
Both approaches suggest possible ways of analyzing the emergence of the Tea Party. If congressional
voting behavior is best understood in terms of a single liberal conservative dimension then factions
would seem to be self-conscious collections of Congressmen who occupy different portions of that
ideological scale. In short, the Tea Party might best be characterized as the most conservative wing of
the Republican Party. On the other hand, if Clausen’s dimensionality argument is correct the Tea Party
may well appear as a distinct group only on one or two dimensions. After analyzing ADA scores and early
votes cast in the 111th Congress DiMaggio concluded that the Tea Party was at best only slightly more
conservative than the rest of the Republicans in the House who had become much more conservative as
a result of the ongoing polarization of the House. Hacker and Pierson’s (2006) analysis of polarization in
the House in fact finds that the Republican Party is responsible for most of the change. It has become
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much more conservative than the Democratic Party has become liberal. Early press reports also
suggested a strong similarity between voting by the Tea Party and other freshmen Republicans.
Politico’s (Long 2011) analysis of 100 CQ roll call found that Republican freshmen voted against their
party only 12.5 % of the time. The limitation with these conclusions is that ADA and other interest group
scores are as yet unavailable for the freshmen class and that an overall similarity in voting patterns
could still hide differences in voting in specific policy areas. Foreign and defense policy in particular
have been viewed as areas where Congress traditionally defers to presidential authority (Wildavsky
1966) although some believe the end of the Cold War eliminated bipartisan consensus (McCormick et al.
1997).
Consequently, three working hypotheses will be tested to determine if congressional voting patterns
indicate that the Tea Party is a distinct faction:
Hypothesis 1: Tea party members are generally more conservative than non-Tea Party
freshmen and non-Tea Party senior Republicans in the House.
Hypothesis 2: Tea party members are more likely than non-Tea Party senior members and nonTea Party Freshmen to oppose government taxing, borrowing and spending proposals.
Hypothesis 3: The Tea Party is less willing to support the president’s foreign policy than are nonTea Party senior Republicans and non-Tea Party freshmen.
To test these hypotheses data was collected on roll call voting during the first year, 2011, of the 112th
Congress. The data includes the fourteen House roll calls identified by Congressional Quarterly’s as key
roll calls for 2011. Congressional Quarterly selects these roll calls because they represent major
controversies, affect presidential power or potentially have a great impact on the United States (Allen
2011 47). Ten additional roll calls were also included: Three deal with the Libyan involvement and were
selected to provide more information about the extent to which Republicans were willing to support the
president’s foreign policy. Three others provide additional information about the debt ceiling and
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government funding, two information about environmental regulation, one information about
government regulation, and one information about social policy.
The roll calls were then analyzed to determine if there was a significant difference between the
voting pattern of Tea Party members, non-Tea Party freshmen Republicans and non-Tea Party senior
Republicans. The results are presented in Table 2. Differences between the groups were either
marginally significant (p<.10) or fully significant (p< .05) for only seven of the twenty four roll calls.
Three of the significant roll calls were votes on the debt limit. Here in half of the cases the Tea Party
members cast more conservative votes than other members of the House.
(Insert Table 2 about here)
As far as foreign and defense policy goes out of six roll calls there are two, one significant and the
other marginally significant, differences in voting. A majority of Tea Party members favored immediate
withdrawal from Libya while other Republicans and the president opposed it. Tea party members were
also more strongly in favor of reducing funding for the F-35 fighter than other members of their party a
question which also has budgetary implications. Consequently there is only limited evidence that the
Tea Party is less supportive of the president’s foreign and defense policy than other Republicans. As for
the two other votes, Tea Party members were significantly less likely to support the Patent Overhaul
Bill than other Republicans, and more likely to support cutting the budget of the National Endowment
for the Arts.
There is no difference in voting between the Tea Party and other Republicans in the House on
medical care, spending and taxation, social issues, or environmental issues. This lack of difference is
particularly notable in the case of environmental voting where multiple roll calls, only one of which is
included here, were cast on a number of environmental issues all producing a similar one sided voting
pattern.
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In terms of the three hypotheses, there is little support for the notion that the Tea Party is generally
more conservative than the rest of the Republican Party. The most notable thing about Republican
voting in the House is the great similarity between votes cast by Tea Party, freshmen and senior
Republicans. DiMaggio’s (2011) observation of similarity based on an analysis of earlier ADA scores of is
largely confirmed when we look at the 112th Congress There is, however, evidence for the second
hypothesis that the Tea Party is casting more conservative votes on budget and debt limitation
legislation. The slightly greater conservatism that DiMaggio notes then seems to consist mostly of votes
in this area. The third hypothesis that the Tea Party would be more conservative on foreign and defense
policy is supported by roll call voting only on two of seven roll calls. In other words the results here are
mixed and indicate at best only a small difference between the groups.
The Future of the Tea Party
What of the future? Is the Tea Party a passing fad or the new face of the Republican Party? At the
time I am writing this, early February 2011, President Obama has a small lead in public opinion polls
(3.8% on 2/7/12, but closer to 2% in previous weeks) over Governor Romney, the likely Republican
nominee, and an even larger leads over other possible Republican nominees including an 8.6% lead over
Senator Santorum (Real Clear Politics 2012). There has also been a small decline in the number of
people who disapprove of the way President Obama is handling his job (from 50.9% to 46.5% as of
2/7/12), and in the number who think the United States is heading in the wrong direction (from 72.2%
to 63.3% as of 2/7/12) (Real Clear Politics 2012). The economy has also begun to improve.
Unemployment has dropped for several months and as of early February is now 8.3%. Things are better
than they were, but still not good. In short, President Obama is ahead by a nose in what appears to be a
very close race.
As for the House, Republican successes in the 2010 congressional elections means that the
Republican party now holds most of the competitive seats. Consequently the Republicans will have both
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more seats to defend and more vulnerable seats to defend in the next election. In addition, Congress as
a whole has very low approval ratings (13.2% as of 2/7/12), and the generic vote questions has indicated
a 2% advantage for Democratic candidates since early November. The Democratic campaign committee
has also done an unusually good job raising funds (Farnam and Kane 2011). The Democratic House
campaign committee has in fact out raised the Republican House campaign committee so far during this
election cycle which is remarkable given the party’s minority status (Open Secrets 2012). Consequently,
if President Obama is reelected the Republican Party will in all probability lose some seats in the House.
Campbell (1986) estimates that for each 1% difference in the two-party vote between the winning
and losing candidate for president, the winning candidate’s party gains three seats in the House. Using
this rule of thumb if President Obama wins 51% of the two-party vote the Democratic Party will gain six
seats in the House. Campbell also uses regression analysis to compute a more sophisticated model
which takes account of the size of the winning party’s base in the House. Applying this formula to a 51%
victory predicts a much larger gain of 34 seats because of the unusually small number of seats currently
held by Democrats in the House.3 The most likely result, however, is a gain somewhere between the
two extremes (6 and 34). The number of seats lost by the Republican Party will also be influenced by
other things including the number of vulnerable Republican House members, the recent
reapportionment and the quality of competition.
One way to identify vulnerable candidates is to look at their previous vote and the kind of district they
represent. Using this measure Republicans who won election with 55% of the vote or less and live in
districts where President Obama received 50% or more of the vote in 2008 are the most vulnerable.
Table 3 uses this measure to identify the vulnerable representatives in each group. Using these criteria
there are 32 vulnerable Republican House members. The results, however, show that only 5%, of the
members of the Tea Party caucus are vulnerable. Senior Republicans are also safe with only 5% of their
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members being vulnerable. Unsurprisingly Republican freshmen have the most to worry about with
23% of them being at risk.
(Insert Table 3 about here)
Members of Congress, however, normally benefit from a “sophomore surge,” i.e. their vote increases
when they first run for reelection (Cover and Mayhew 1981). One of the reasons for this is legislative
reapportionment which is frequently used to maximize partisan advantage for whichever party is
fortunate enough to control the process. Congressional districts have just been reapportioned. The
process is simple; state legislatures draw the boundaries for congressional districts. Most of the time
this means a party must control both houses of the legislature and the governorship in order to
gerrymander a state’s congressional districts. It also implies that bipartisan reapportionment plans will
be the rule when party control is divided. The second part of Table 3 controls the relationship between
group membership and vulnerability by control of the reapportionment process. As a consequence of
their electoral success in 2010 Republicans control more of the reapportionment process than
Democrats. Once again the Tea Party is safe. All of its vulnerable members represent districts in states
where the Republican Party controls the reapportionment process and consequently is able to protect
them. Freshmen Republicans have a harder time, but more of them live in states where they can be
protected because the Republican Party controls the process. The most vulnerable Republicans are the
three who live in states where the Democratic Party is in charge. In addition, there are also seven
vulnerable Republicans who live in states where the bipartisan nature of the reapportionment process
means that their districts will remain relatively unchanged.
Additional complications, however, arise because of the shift of 12 seats between states. The
Democrats control only one of the states that gained a seat and only one of the other states is split.
Consequently ten of the new seats will go to states where the Republicans control the reapportionment
process. On the other hand, Republicans control only three of the ten states which are losing seats.
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Two of these states are controlled by Democrats and the remaining are either split or use a nonpartisan
reapportionment process. Both the gain in seats and the loss of seats necessitates greater than usual
changes in Congressional district boundaries, and the temptation in either case is to redraw those
boundaries at the expense of the minority party. The net effect then of all of these changes is that more
open seats are going to be drawn in ways that are favorable to the Republican Party. These advantages
are real, although the growth of Hispanic population and the very large number of seats held by the
Republican Party makes it more difficult to insure all of these new seats will elect Republicans.
It is also not necessarily certain that all of the Republicans who run for these open seats will be Tea
Party members. Karpowitz et al.’s ( 2011) analysis of the effect of Tea Party endorsements on
Republican vote share in the 2010 general election found that of seven possibilities (endorsement by
any Tea Party group, a local group, Tea Party Express, Boston Tea Party, Independence Caucus, Freedom
Works or Sarah Palin) only endorsements by Freedom Works which were accompanied by large
campaign contributions resulted in increased support. Further, public opinion has become more critical
of the Tea Party. Pew Research (2011) finds that the Tea Party has lost support in the nation as a whole.
Polling done in November of 2011 found that nationally the 27% of people who disagree with the Tea
Party exceeded the 23% who agreed with it. Pew also found that although support for the Tea Party had
declined to 25% in Tea Party House districts this number still exceeded that 23% that disagreed in those
districts. So once again the Tea Party caucus appears safe in those districts it now holds.
Finally it is also possible to look at the kind of opponents Tea Party candidates are likely to have. One
explanation of congressional losses is that many representatives lack significant opposition (Jacobson
and Kernell 1981). Politics1 (Bunzburger 2012) lists House candidates from all states and their
opponents with information about prior office holding. Table 4 presents information about which
incumbent Republicans are being challenged by opponents at least one of whom holds a significant
prior office (former member of Congress, state legislator, mayor of significant city or major county wide
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elected officer) or in two cases are the spouse of significant former public officeholders (governor and
member of Congress). When candidates with significant office holding experience are considered to be
strong candidates, 82% of the Tea Party caucus lacks significant challengers. Interestingly two of the
members of the Tea Party caucus Steve Palazzo and Jeff Landry have Republican primary opponents
who are also identified as Tea Party activists, and the three most serious challenges from Democrats are
to Joe Walsh in Illinois, Alan West in Florida and Blake Farenhold from Texas. Once again it is the nonTea Party freshmen who have the largest number of serious challengers.
(Insert Table 4 About here)
Table 4 also indicates when this relationship is controlled for which party dominated the
reapportionment process that only in House districts where bipartisan control limits the amount of
change in districts do non-Tea Party Freshmen have significantly more strong challengers than other
House Republicans. In the districts where reapportionment was controlled by either the Republican or
Democratic parties the results indicate that there is no difference in the extent to which incumbents
from the different groups face strong challengers. That is to say, candidates from all three of the groups
are unlikely to have serious challengers in Republican controlled states and more likely to have serious
challengers in Democratically controlled states.
Finally, the relationship between group and strong challengers is also controlled for vulnerability in
Table 4. When controlled the relationship between group membership and quality of challengers
becomes insignificant although freshmen who are not vulnerable have slightly fewer serious challengers
than do members of the other groups. As for the Tea Party caucus, its members and senior non-Tea
Party Republicans have essentially the same pattern of challengers. Vulnerability draws serious
challengers and the most vulnerable Republicans are likely to be found in those states where the
Republican Party does not control the reapportionment process.
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Looking again at the 2012 election, the results suggest that the Tea Party Caucus in the House has little
to worry about. Members of the caucus are unlikely to be defeated when they run for reelection. The
most vulnerable Republicans in the House are the recently elected non-Tea Party freshmen. They are
also the most likely to have serious Democratic opponents. Consequently, the Tea Party may actually
become a larger portion of the Republican Party in the House if Republicans suffer significant loses in
the 2012 election.
Discussion and Conclusion
Although the Tea Party Caucus self identifies as a separate faction within the Republican Party and
the media describes it as a distinct group, there is very little difference between members of the Tea
Party in Congress and other Republicans. The House members of the Tea Party are slightly more
southern than other Republicans, but not exclusively so and the majority of southern Republicans do not
belong. As for their voting patterns DiMaggio (2011) is right, the Tea Party caucus votes about the same
way as do other Republicans in the House. There are only a few major exceptions. The Tea Party is
more unwilling to compromise on the debt ceiling, more opposed to funding the NEA and more willing
to vote for immediate withdrawal form Libya than were other Republicans. In other respects, however,
what is notable is the high degree of agreement between Republican House members on public policy.
The closest the Tea Party comes to fitting a pattern is one of unusually strong opposition to government
debt and spending a policy area which is similar to Clausen’s (1973) scope of government dimension.
The question then is how much of an impact does self-identification and media attribution have on
group cohesion. It would be easy to dismiss the claims of membership in the Tea Party as simply a top
down movement developed by Republican operatives to rebrand the Republican Party except, whatever
its origins; the Tea Party has a life of its own. They are not political armatures. Tea Party candidates are
running for Congress and now also for the state legislatures. Other Republicans are acting more and
more like the Tea Party. In short, they are a presence, but not an entirely distinct presence. They are,
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however, a presence that is here to stay. Whatever happens in the 2012 election the Tea Party caucus is
unlikely to shrink in size because its members are not electorally vulnerable. In fact, large Republican
losses in the House during the next election will only increase the relative size and power of the caucus
within the Republican Party.
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Tajfel, Henri. 1970. “Experiments in Group Discrimination.” Scientific American 233:96-102.
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- 19 -
Foot Notes
1. This is 71% of all Republicans in the House.
2. Evangelical Protestants are individuals who listed their religious affiliation as “Christian,”
Baptist or Church of Nazarene.
3. Campbell’s (1986) regression equation predicting seat gains which is based on election data
collected between 1900 and 1980 is: Gain = -35.33 + 4.25 Vote – 0.66 Base – 37.94 Early + e
Where: Gain is change in number of Democratic seats. Vote is two-party Democratic
presidential vote which is assumed to be 51%. Base is the average number of seat held by
Democrats in the two preceding Congresses which is 243. Early is 1 for pre 1932 and 0 for
after 1932 or in this case 0. Substituting in to the equation we get: Vote = -35.33 + 4.25 (51) .066 (223.5) + 0 or 33.93.
.
- 20 -
- 21 -
Table 1: Demographic Comparisons to Other Republicans
(Pearson’s r)
Tea Party
Freshmen
Senior
Southern
.27**
-.14**
-.12*
% Black
% Hispanic
% Gov. workers
% Blue Collar
.16**
.04
.01
.03
.01
-.12*
-.02
.09
-.15**
.07
-.00
-.11*
% White Collar
.02
-.11*
.08
Obama vote
Prior vote
Prior Legislative service
Business
Evangelical
First elected
N
-.27**
.17**
.01
-.03
.08
.02
66
.21**
-.49**
.05
.04
.08
.51**
65
- 22 -
.05
.28**
-.05
-.00
-.14**
-.47**
109
Table 2: Voting patterns
(Voted or announced in favor)
Tea Party
Debt Limit
CQ 677 Raise debt + balanced budget amendment o
CQ 690 Raise debt + super committee or cuts*f
CQ 706 Disapproval additional increasef
CQ 745 Continuing appropriation + disaster relief
CQ 858 Balanced Budget Amendment* o
Spending and Taxation
CQ 611 Reauthorize FAA with cuts for small airports*
CQ 946 Refuse to extend payroll tax cut*
Regulation
CQ 491 Patent overhaul*f
CQ 711 Stop NLRB blocking relocation of plant
Medical Care
CQ 14 Repeal Obama care*o
CQ 277 Change Medicare to block grant for over
55 and private insurance for those under*
Social Issues
CQ 670 cut NEA endowment
CQ 789 Bar federal funds for abortion* o
Environment
CQ 249 Prohibit EPA regulating greenhouse gasses*o
CQ 764 Cement plant emissionso
CQ 800 Direct EPA to defer to state coal regulations
Defense
CQ 46 reduce funding F-35 fighter engine*
CQ 357 Only Military Commissions for Terrorists*o
CQ 376 Extend Patriot Act*f
Libya
CQ 411 Resolution opposing ground troops*
CQ 412 War Powers Act Libya withdrawal
CQ 493 One year authorization of action
CQ 494 Limit spending for unless authorized by law
Trade
CQ 771 Columbia Korea trade agreement*
Senior
Sig.
85%
54%
97%
60%
98%
94%
72%
97%
74%
98%
94%
84%
97%
91%
98%
.10
.00
.71
.00
.98
97%
100%
100%
94%
97%
97%
.39
.12
59%
98%
79%
95%
77%
96%
.01
.58
100%
100%
100%
97%
sig.
.54
95%
100%
73%
98%
68%
99%
.00
.63
100%
100%
100%
100%
100%
100%
100%
98%
97%
sig.
.30
.16
53%
100%
86%
52%
95%
85%
38%
96%
88%
.08
.24
.79
92%
52%
2%
55%
98%
33%
2%
63%
96%
33%
6%
64%
.21
.02
.23
.52
100%
100%
99%
.55
100%
97%
* = CQ key vote of 2011 f=President favors o=President opposes
- 23 -
Freshmen
Table 3: Influence of Vulnerability
Not vulnerable
Vulnerable
Tea Party
Group
Freshmen
96%
5
77%
23%
95%
5
66
65
105
Senior
2
Χ = 18.73 sig.= .00
Vulnerable Republicans Controlling for Reapportionment
Control for Reapportionment
Democrats control
Bipartisan
Republicans control
Tea Freshmen Senior Tea Freshmen Senior Tea Freshmen Senior
Not Vulnerable
Vulnerable
n
100%
0
7
90%
10
10
χ2 = .69 sig. = .71
92%
8
25
100%
0
13
59%
41
17
χ2 =17.08 sig. = .00
100%
0
23
96%
4
46
77%
23
38
χ2 = 5.72 sig, = .06
Vulnerable districts are districts where the Republican received < 55% of the vote in 2010 and
represented districts where Obama received > 50% in 2008
- 24 -
95%
5
61
Table 4: Quality of Competition
Not strong
Strong
Tea Party
Group
Freshmen
82%
18
69%
31
85%
15
66
65
105
Senior
χ2 = 6.78 sig.= .03
Control for Reapportionment
Democrats control
Bipartisan
Tea Freshmen Senior Tea Freshmen Seniors
Not strong
Strong
n
57%
43
7
80%
20
10
84%
16
25
χ2 =2.36 sig.= .31
χ2 = 7.39
69%
31
13
47%
53
17
87%
13
23
Republicans control
Tea Freshmen Senior
89%
18
66
76%
24
38
85%
15
93
χ2 = .26 sig. =.26
sig.= .02
Control for Vulnerability
Not Vulnerable
Vulnerable
Tea Freshmen Senior
Tea Freshmen Senior
Not Strong
Strong
n
84%
16
63
74%
26
50
88%
17
104
χ2 = 4.48 sig. = .11
33%
67
3
53%
47
15
40%
60
5
χ2 =.56 sig.= .76
Strong competition means that one or more of the opposite party’s candidates have held significant
prior office as a former member of Congress, state legislator, mayor of a significant city or county wide
officeholder. The former first lady of Iowa and a widow of a previous member of Congress are also
included.
- 25 -
Appendix
Table 5: Logit Models Distinguishing Tea Party Members
From other Republicans Elected in 2010
Constant
Prior vote
First Elected
Southern
% Black
% Hispanic
% Blue Collar
% Gov. Workers
% Urban
Legislative Service
Conservative Protestant
Obama vote
Business
N
Nagelkerke R2
Model Chi2 (sig.)
Null % (Correct %)
b
-14.62
-.02
.00
1.20
.00
.01
-.05
-.01
-.02
-.04
.11
sig.
.70
.75
.69
.00
.94
.59
.34
.73
.27
.96
.24
-.11
.74
b
-16.74
.13
.01
.96
sig.
.65
.75
.64
.00
.18
.08
-.06
-.14
.79
.41
.01
.66
236
240
.13
21.57 (.03)
72.6 (73.8)
.15
26.55 (.00)
72.8 (73.6)
- 26 -
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