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WHILE MOST POLITICAL SCIENTISTS
don’t consider the Tea Party
movement to be a separate
political party, Tea Party
groups have forced the
Republican Party to confront
conflicting views within the
party and forge compromises.
Here, Representative Michele
Bachmann (R-Minn.) holds a
press conference following
the first meeting of the Tea
Party Caucus in the House of
Representatives.B
EGINNING IN 2009, GROUPS AFFILIATED WITH THE Tea Party movement
began encouraging candidates sympathetic to their goals to run for offi ce in- The Tea Party movement encompasses numerous loosely affi liated groups
that organized in opposition to a broad range of developments in 2009 and 2010,
including the following: federal economic stimulus spending; bailouts of banks,
auto companies, and other businesses; health care reform; immigration reform;
and affi rmative action. These groups, ranging from the Tea Party Patriots to the
Tea Party in Space, have attracted a wide range of citizens to their rallies, used
face-to-face meetings and social networks to discuss issues, and recruited
candidates.
Their recruitment efforts bore fruit in the 2010 midterm elections, when
nearly 150 candidates ran for the House and Senate with the endorsement of one
or more Tea Party groups. About a third were elected. These candidates ran as
Republicans or independents. Some won the Republican nomination with little
or no opposition, but others defeated candidates who were supported by the
state or local Republican Party organization. One Tea Party candidate in Utah
even defeated an incumbent Republican senator for the nomination; another
in Delaware won the Republican Senate nomination by defeating a well-known
Republican House member who had the support of most state and local party
offi cials.
As we will see repeatedly throughout this textbook, political parties are often
at the center of confl icts in American politics. The two main American political