Following the historic election of Barack Obama, the largest overhaul of the nation's health care system since the Great Society, and with the country still reeling from the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, a group of disenchanted conservative Republicans and elected leaders wary of government policy gave rise to a new political movement - the Tea Party. Since taking the American political system by storm in 2010, considerable research has focused on the electoral consequences of the Tea Party. Using an original dataset and the American National Election Study, I study the Tea Party Caucus at the elite level by analyzing roll call votes, incumbency, and endorsements, and at the mass level through an examination of congressional districts and constituencies. Findings show that members of the Tea Party Caucus and their Republican House colleagues are largely homogeneous. Exceptions to this include economic final passage votes, legislation receiving presidential support, district lean, census region, and presidential vote in congressional districts. Furthermore, evidence is seen that economic factors in members' districts affected the election of freshmen representatives in 2010, and that district variables strongly influence legislative voting behavior. Finally, discontinuity is discovered between the Tea Party movement at the mass level and the Tea Party Caucus at the elite level.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ucf.edu/oai:stars.library.ucf.edu:etd-5699 |
| Date | 01 January 2014 |
| Creators | Phillips, Stephen |
| Publisher | STARS |
| Source Sets | University of Central Florida |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | Electronic Theses and Dissertations |
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