Growing Tea With Subnational Roots: Tea Party Affiliation, Factionalism, and GOP Politics in State Legislatures

Abstract

Most research has examined the influence of the Tea Party as a social movement or loose organization, but less is known about its influence within legislative party politics, especially at the state level. In this paper, we argue that in this context the Tea Party is primarily an intraparty faction that has caused significant divisions inside the Republican Party. Using an original dataset of legislators across 13 states for the years 2010 to 2013, we examine legislator and district-level characteristics that predict state legislators’ affiliation with the Tea Party. Our results reveal that in some respects legislators affiliated with the Tea Party are a far-right wing of the Republican Party. However, by other measures that capture anti-establishment political sentiment, Tea Party affiliated legislators comprise a factional group attempting to transform the Party in ways that go beyond ideology. These findings have important implications for the future prospects of the GOP.

How Local Factions Pressure Parties: Activist Groups and Primary Contests in the Tea Party Era

“…We find that districts that experienced local factionalism moved rightward under both metrics between the 2008 election/111th Congress and the 2016 election/115th Congress compared to other districts. These findings are consistent with claims that Tea Party groups exercised disproportionate influence during the candidate selection process (Blum 2020), which contributed to a transformation of the Republican Party (Rouse, Hunt, and Essel 2022). Our findings also underscore the importance of district-level analyses for understanding contemporary US parties.…”

“…The Tea Party insurgency was characterized by reactionary conservatism, anti-establishment posture, and scorched-earth tactics which sought to take control of the party by any means necessary (Blum 2020;Parker and Barreto 2014;Skocpol and Williamson 2012). Notably, this faction applied pressure over multiple institutions, including Congress (Gervais and Morris 2018) and state legislatures (Institute for Research & Education on Human Rights 2022; Rouse, Hunt, and Essel 2022). Qualitative and case study evidence suggests that the Tea Party's efforts also relied on strong state and local operations (Blum 2020;Skocpol and Williamson 2012).…”