Keywords

Tea party, tea party movement, tea party caucus, caucus, republican, republican conference, elite level, mass level, anes, american national election study, 112th congress, one hundred twelfth congress, 113th congress, one hundred thirteenth congress, united states congress, congress, house, house of representatives, boehner, bachmann, gop, bush, obama, pvi, partisan voting index, roll call voting, legislative voting behavior, incumbency, endorsements, redistricting, 2010 election, 2012 election

Abstract

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.

Notes

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Graduation Date

2014

Semester

Spring

Advisor

Pollock, Philip

Degree

Master of Arts (M.A.)

College

College of Sciences

Department

Political Science

Degree Program

Political Science; American and Comparative Politics

Format

application/pdf

Identifier

CFE0005229

URL

http://purl.fcla.edu/fcla/etd/CFE0005229

Language

English

Release Date

May 2014

Length of Campus-only Access

None

Access Status

Masters Thesis (Open Access)

Subjects

Dissertations, Academic -- Sciences; Sciences -- Dissertations, Academic

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