With a few inexperienced Republican Senate candidates struggling, some analysts are suggesting that the Tea Party damaged the party's chances in November by helping weak candidates win primary elections. That may be true in the Senate, but the GOP has always been more likely to regain its majority in the House. Despite the influence of the Tea Party, Republicans actually have more candidates who have previously held elected office than the Democrats in competitive House races. On candidate quality, Democrats are still at a disadvantage.
Last week, the New York Times's Kate Zernike examined all the Republican candidates running nationwide and identified 129 House candidates and 9 Senate candidates who are closely affiliated with the Tea Party movement. She notes that "the Tea Party has ... handed opportunities to the Democrats by nominating candidates who have struggled" -- particularly Senate nominees Christine O'Donnell (Delaware), Sharron Angle (Nevada), and Rand Paul (Kentucky). However, in terms of candidates, the movement's impact may be overstated. As Zernike notes, "the bulk of the Tea Party candidates are running in districts that are solidly Democratic."
To make this findings more concrete, I combine Zernike's coding of 2010 House candidates with historical data on House elections compiled by UCSD's Gary Jacobson and 2008 and 2010 data generously shared by Dave Rohde, one of my mentors in graduate school at Duke.* (Comparable data for the Senate are not available.)
To assess the strength of the GOP candidates, I consider one of the key indicators from the political science literature on Congressional elections -- previously holding elected office, which Jacobson has identified as a key proxy for candidate quality. While there are exceptions to the rule, experienced politicians tend to be better vetted and less likely to make race-changing mistakes (as O'Donnell and Paul have demonstrated).
When we examine the data, it's clear that the favorable electoral environment has attracted a strong group of Republican candidates. Despite the influence of the Tea Party movement, the GOP actually has more House candidates who have previously held elected office running for open seats than the Democrats do:
Similarly, there are significantly more Republicans who have previously held electoral office challenging incumbents in potentially competitive districts than Democrats (defined as districts in which the presidential nominee of the incumbent's party received less than 60% of the two-party vote in the most recent election):
The quality of the Republican candidates running with Tea Party backing also differ substantially depending on the type of race they are in:
Given the odds that they face, it's not surprising that very few of the challengers in non-competitive districts (where the incumbent party's presidential nominee received more than 60% of the two-party vote) have previously held elected office regardless of whether they are affiliated with the Tea Party movement. The large number of amateur Tea Party candidates in this group (56 out of 58 total TP candidates) are therefore unlikely to significantly hurt the GOP.
More importantly, while it's true that Tea Party candidates are less likely to have previously held elected office in more contested races, the differences are smaller than one might think -- 48% of non-TP challengers in competitive districts (25 of 52) versus 33% of TP challengers in competitive districts (18 of 54) and 53% of non-TP open seat candidates (15 of 28) versus 43% of TP open seat candidates (6 of 14).
In short, the Tea Party movement has affiliated itself with a surprising number of non-amateur politicians in competitive and open-seat races. As a result, the GOP still has a candidate quality advantage in the House races that matter most.
Update 10/22 10:22 AM: More from Slate's Dave Weigel:
If this is surprising, a lot of that has to do with 1) a weird occasional media focus on noncompetitive races and 2) the ability of some smart politicians to brand themselves as "Tea Party" candidates. Marco Rubio, for example, could have run in a previous year as a savvy politician mentored by Jeb Bush. Instead, he introduced himself as the Tea Party in one man. Same happened with Ken Buck, a seasoned local politician who simply defined himself against a politician who'd held a higher office.
As to that first issue, I'm continually surprised that fringe candidates like Ohio's Richard Iott get so much attention; his penchant for dressing up as a Nazi is, of course, weird and stupid, but he never had a chance of winning. I'd add a bit to Nyhan's model, because the Tea Party has swung behind some first-time candidates in House races, mostly businessmen, who are going to win where token candidates used to lose.
Update 10/25 9:45 AM -- More from John Sides:
There is a tendency for some observers to assume that an ideologically driven movement -- especially if it appears to contain some "fringe elements" or whatever -- isn't going to be politically strategic. The emergence of a few high-profile oddball candidates that have the support of the movement -- your Christine O'Donnells -- only seems to further this perception of movements like the Tea Party as somehow lacking the savvy to get behind good candidates. But clearly that's not true, especially in a cycle when every other political dynamic -- a weak economy, a less-than-popular president -- gives qualified Republican candidates an incentive to come forward anyway.
The only caveat I'd add is that Nyhan is only looking at experience, not ideological extremism. For the most part, political scientists have found that the former is very important, while the latter matters more around the margins in most cases. However, it is certainly possible for those with previous electoral experience to be weak candidates (see Sharron Angle, who may well win but only after overcoming an unusual number of gaffes), and it's possible that ideological extremism could be a problem for some of those experienced candidates. Possible, but again, on that we don't have any evidence yet.
All this suggests that the Tea Party, to the extent we can define it as a unified entity, is much more pragmatic than the media usually portray it to be. Remember that Tea Party members enthusiastically backed Scott Brown for the Massachusetts Senate seat despite his very moderate credentials. That is, he stood for basically nothing that they stood for, but they recognized the importance of depriving Democrats of their filibuster-proof majority, so they sucked it up.
* Thanks also to Aaron King and Frank Orlando, my former grad student colleagues at Duke, for doing the hard work of compiling these data. Neither Rohde nor King or Orlando bears any responsibility for this analysis.
Interesting analysis. I'm curious how much overlap there is between the districts that you treat as competitive in your analysis (n=106?) and the districts that Nate Silver's model treats as non-safe, i.e., having less than a 95% probability of victory by the leading candidate (n=144, I believe). Unfortunately, getting the answer to that question probably involves a bit of of not very productive labor, unless you or one of your colleagues has a research assistant sitting idle.
Posted by: Rob | October 21, 2010 at 05:21 PM
Yeah, I don't know. One problem is that you don't want to adjust by current competitiveness because that's in part a function of candidate quality. That's why I used the presidential vote instead.
Posted by: bnyhan | October 21, 2010 at 05:29 PM
I think all you've proved here is how partisan-Republican the Tea Party really is...
JMJ
Posted by: Jersey McJones | October 22, 2010 at 02:22 AM
Jersey -- yes the Tea Party candidates are almost entirely Republican. That's because they stand for restricting the growth of government and few Dems hold that position.
However, I think Brendan demonstrated something else of importance. Due to the media focus on certain hapless Tea Party candidates -- particularly Christine O'Donnell -- many people may have the impression that Tea Party candidates in general are politically weak. Brendan's analysis shows that's not the case.
BTW poor Christine O'Donnell gets blased by the media even when she's right. During a debate she accurately pointed out that the phrase "separation of church and state" is not in the Constitution. Her opponent was unaware of this fact, nor could he name the other freedoms protected by the 1st Amendment. The media nevertheless blasted O'Donnell for supposedly being ignorant of the Constitution.
Posted by: David in Cal | October 22, 2010 at 10:02 AM
Nice work Brendan.
Posted by: MartyB | October 22, 2010 at 12:52 PM
Jersey,
Amendment 1 states - "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..."
Which is the separation of church and state by definition.
To imply anything else is simply indefensible.
It's like saying the Bible doesn't explicitly say "Jesus rose." Instead, the apostles gave testimony. The fact is, Jesus rose.
You can't defend O'Donnell - she's a dumb as a rock and is trying to cover up the fact that she's a born again Christian.
The fact is - as a Conservative - O'Donnell, Angle and Miller make me cringe. Buck and Toomey do not.
And, unfortunately, by putting up these weak candidates, guys like Toomey may go down when they really shouldn't.
This isn't the Yankees vs. Red Sox or the Gators vs. Bulldogs folks - it's the future of the country.
We need to nominate WORTHY, CREDIBLE candidates in ALL races. And to foresake the NE & Far West, which will NEVER nomindate anyone but social moderate, fiscal conservatives just plain ignores the electoral math.
Posted by: Drew | October 22, 2010 at 05:13 PM
Hot Air: The myth of the lousy Tea Party candidate?
http://hotair.com/archives/2010/10/22/the-myth-of-the-lousy-tea-party-candidate/
Posted by: StewartIII | October 22, 2010 at 05:13 PM
You seem to have forgot about the calendar. The fact is the primaries were the first political effort for most the TEA parties and they were late to the gig and not that well organized. This is a second job for most of them they were not politically active before and it is a big learning curve.
They were inexperienced in the process as it is a very complicated and clubby process. They are better prepared for the current election but thier choices generally speaking are the default conservative??/RCC picked people. The next primary should be a better indicator of how effective the TEA parties are. They better understand the electoral process and are and will be working it from the next primaries on thru the next Presidential election. They are starting already. I know because I am very involved with this effort.
The TEA parties efforts are to get rid of all these crooks in both parties one way or another. The real question is where is the effort of the pure Dems to clean house on thier side? Or are they satisfied with such mountains of ethics like Charlie Rengal, Barney Frank and many others who have hyjacked thier party into some Socialistic front group. Maybe we should all join the unions and close down all greedy business in this country, take the owners money and distribute it using social justice.
If something doesn't change soon we are headed into social chaos, bankruptcy. Both parties agree current policies are "unsustainable" yet both parties continue to spend and enslave us all to the ever mounting national debt.
See you at the polls.
Posted by: jeff | October 22, 2010 at 06:47 PM
Drew, interpreting the Establishment Clause to require Separation of Church and State is one reasonable interpretation, but it's not the only one. Nor is SOCAS the interpretation understood by the Founders.
Originally, the Establishment Clause prohibited an explicit State religion, like Judaism in Israel, but it wasn't understood to prohibit all religious activities by the government. E.g., President George Washington declared two separate explicitly religious Days of Thanksgiving.
In fact, I believe originally the Establshment Clause allowed an individual state to have an official state religion. The Supreme Court changed that when they extended the 1st Amendment to apply to the states.
For over 150 years, Americans didn't understand the Establishment Clause to require SOCAS. Only in the last few decades has the Supreme Court made that the official interpretation.
Posted by: David in Cal | October 22, 2010 at 08:20 PM
>In fact, I believe originally the
>Establshment Clause allowed an individual
>state to have an official state religion.
>The Supreme Court changed that when they
>extended the 1st Amendment to apply to the
>states.
That wasn't the Supreme Court. It was the 14th Amendment in 1868 that applied the Bill of Rights ("No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States"). Which is why when challenged, such as the recent gun cases, the Supreme Court rules a state can not violate the Bill of Rights which prior to the 14th only restricted Federal action.
At the time of the adoption of the Constitution it was the model of the New England states that the other states feared; they already disestablished state religions (such as the Virginia Bill of Religious Freedom of 1785) and wanted to similarly restrict Congress.
Connecticut disestablished the Congregational Church in 1818, and Massachusetts in 1833, which ended official ties between church and state in America. It was a decades long fight, the original opposition first organized as anti-establishmentarians, a movement which coalesced with other political and financial interests as the Anti-Federalists in New England.
Any reasonable interpretation of the 14th amendment means you must read "Congress" more broadly then the original construction to mean any legislative body since it now applied the 1st to states, thus assuring no state could establish in the future.
When the Congregational Church was established in most New England states it received tax support of the government -- if you didn't pay ecclesiastical taxes or qualify for an exemption by showing you financially supported and attended another church your property could be seized and sold like any other tax debt. Other denominations which wished to open a church would need the permission of the Congregational ministers of that county (and if I believe in some cases the Congregational ministers would go as far as to disapprove the hiring of particular preachers by churches of other faiths if they were especially disagreeable to the Congregationalists).
An established church was a far more dangerous and powerful thing they we envision today in our fairly petty battles over school prayer and ten commandments at the courthouse.
This isn't something the Supremes just pulled out of their hat in 1960-something. The concept of separation of Church and State was a battle that existed and was being fought by those who wrote the Constitution, but like slavery they could not simply abolish established churches at the time the Constitution was adopted -- even though that was clearly the direction the nation was moving.
Posted by: me.yahoo.com/a/M6gsi2gz0Y6wF7siuwFwYMkVGMwUiLm15h1DgFI- | October 22, 2010 at 10:44 PM
To the previous commenter with the unpronounceable name, your comment makes good points about the history of established churches in the United States, but it's incorrect in saying that the Bill of Rights was incorporated against the states by virtue of the Privileges or Immunities Clause. There are some who make that argument, but it's not one that's been accepted by the Supreme Court. (Clarence Thomas's concurrence in the recent McDonald v. Chicago case argued for that proposition with respect to the Second Amendment, and many scholars wished the Supreme Court would take that approach, but they've been disappointed so far.)
Instead, the protections of the Bill of Rights have been incorporated against the states on a piecemeal basis, using the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Though one could say that all such provisions that have been incorporated were incorporated as of the passage of the Fourteenth Amendment, it wasn't known that they were incorporated until the Supreme Court ruled that way in a series of 20th and 21st century cases. Accordingly, I think David's statement on that subject is accurate.
Posted by: Rob | October 22, 2010 at 11:38 PM
The body of your analysis is quite good, the title threw me off a little, I was expecting a negative piece on the Tea Party.
I think a more appropriate title would be "Is the Tea Party Really Hurting the GOP?" I realize that title might not attract as many readers, but that is the real question you are answering.
One thing that is currently hard to quantify is the impact the Tea Party is having on playing down emotional, social wedge issues? This is where the long term impact of the Tea Party will be measured.
Stressing fiscal conservatism and limited government against the backdrop of debt-driven social unrest in Europe strengthens the Tea Party message. If a coalition of voters is formed that include Democrats, Independents, and even Libertarians that value fiscal conservatism and limted government over sensitive social wedge issues, the U.S. political landscape will be redefined.
Posted by: Chuck Yingst | October 23, 2010 at 09:48 AM
As a member of a voting coalition comprised of rank and file Republicans, Democrats, Independents, and Libertarians, all focused on fiscal responsibility and limited government, Libertartians will be making the largest philosophical contribution.
My unfortunate use of "even Libertarians" referred to their relative size as a voting block, not the impact they are having on this election. Indeed, the minimizing of social wedge issues which permits Democrats and Independents to focus on fiscal issues and limited goverment principles over social wedge issues is very Libertarian.
Posted by: Chuck Yingst | October 23, 2010 at 10:13 AM
In an earlier post, Brendan described a Tea Party conference that was held yesterday at UC Berkeley. A report on that conference from Slate is here.
IMHO this report shows that the academics represented here have little clue as to what's going on. Some participants found lots of bogus evidence supposedly demonstrating that the Tea Parties are teeming with racism. One used statististical hypothosis testing to demonstrate the obvious conclusion that pre-existing beliefs in economic and political individualist ideology impacted levels of dissatisfaction with government policy.
IMHO this conference demonstrates that some fields of supposed academic studies do not deserve a place in the academic world.
Posted by: David in Cal | October 24, 2010 at 01:59 AM
It's difficult to know whether to be amused or alarmed by Weigel's report on the Berkeley conference. That some academics would regard as a proxy for racism agreement with "the proposition that blacks ought to work their way up without any special favors" is unsurprising but still troubling; apparently the notion that there is a principled argument against affirmative action is something these academics are unable to accept.
For comic relief, we have University of Michigan political science and women's studies professor Lisa Disch proclaiming, "You're not allowed to just say no to everything the president wants." What can we conclude other than that news of the U.S. Constitution hasn't yet reached Ann Arbor? I had to confirm it myself. There she is, a tenured full professor--and one whose trip to Berkeley was almost certainly paid for out of departmental funds. The mind boggles.
Posted by: Rob | October 24, 2010 at 02:45 AM
BTW Prof. Disch isn't the only Obama-supporter to argue that Republican resistance thwarted Obama's agenda. Apparently that's a standard talking point.
I find it amazing that someone can make this argument with a straight face. After all, Obama had such large majorities in both Houses that he could pass legislation with little or no Republican support. Furthermore, he did enact laws of enormous impact (for better or for worse), such as Health Reform and the trillion dollar Stimulus.
Posted by: David in Cal | October 24, 2010 at 11:09 AM
I can't get my mind off Professor Disch's statement, "You're not allowed to just say no to everything the president wants." Of course she's wrong. In the United States, you are allowed to say no to everything the president wants, unless you're a member of the military in which case you're obliged to follow lawful orders. So let's consider the possibilities:
(1) Is Professor Disch suffering under a huge misperception about what you're allowed to do in the United States? That forces us to ask the question, which elites fostered that misperception?
(2) More ominous, is Professor Disch herself one of those elites, pressing the myth that you're not allowed to say no on hapless members of the public? If that's the case, we need to name her and shame her and get together to deny her an opportunity to spread her malarky through elite media.
(3) Did Professor Disch actually not believe what she said, but said it out of rage and frustration and impotence? (Similarly, many who respond to pollsters that Obama is Muslim may not actually believe it but are speaking out of rage and frustration.) If that's the case, maybe all she needs is for Dr. Phil to give her a spa weekend.
(4) Did Professor Disch mean not that you're not allowed to say no, but that you shouldn't be allowed to say no. That would smack more than a little of a penchant for totalitarianism--what we might otherwise call fascism except that if you're a card-carrying member of the left, you can't be guilty of fascism.
(5) Did Professor Disch mean not that you're not allowed to say no, and not that you shouldn't be allowed to say no, but that it's a very bad idea for you to say no to everything the president wants? In that event, she's not guilty of a misperception so much as an inability to express herself clearly.
Perhaps this is more attention than Professor Disch's undeniably foolish statement deserves. But for fun, imagine if the statement had been made not by a full professor at the University of Michigan but rather by Sarah Palin or Christine O'Donnell or Sharon Angle. What sturm und drang there'd be! What gnashing of teeth! What solemn pronouncements that they were unqualified to hold office! Of course, Professor Disch isn't running for any office; she's merely teaching young people at one of the leading state-run universities in the country, and because she has tenure her job is 100% secure. So no problem!
Posted by: Rob | October 24, 2010 at 02:30 PM
One bizarre aspect is the existence of a Center for the Comparative Study of Right-Wing Movements. Naturally, to this Department the Tea Parties appear right wing.
IMHO this is a mistake. Support for the Constitution and opposition to Health Reform and other recent expansions of government are hardly out of the mainstream. Opponents of Tea Parties who make the mistake of thinking that Tea Parties are some kind of extremists will not be effective in opposing the Tea Paarties IMHO.
Posted by: David in Cal | October 24, 2010 at 09:25 PM