Tea Party Influence: A Story of Activists

Understanding how the Tea Party has affected congressional elections and roll call voting helps us understand not only an important political move-ment, but how movements affect politics more generally. We investigate four channels for the movement to influence political outcomes: activists, constit-uent opinion, group endorsement activity and elite-level self-identification. We find consistent evidence that activists mattered both electorally and for roll call voting on issues of importance to the movement. Constituent opin-ion had virtually no impact on either political outcome. Group endorsement activity had possible effects on elections, but mostly no effect on congressional voting. Self-identification among elites did not enhance—or harm—Republican electoral fortunes, but did affect congressional votes important to the move-ment. These divergent results illustrate how movement politics can influence outcomes through multiple channels and call into question the usefulness of the “Tea Party’ ’ moniker without important qualifiers