The Tea Party Impact

So, one of the obvious questions about this election is: “just what was the impact of the Tea Party.”  After thinking about this for weeks now and talking things over with my friend, political scientist extraordinaire Kyle Saunders, we both agreed on the conclusion that the Tea Party may have been good for the Republicans taking an extra 15-20 House seats than the otherwise would have (Kyle says 25), but that it directly cost them the Senate.

The Senate part is easy.  Without the Tea Party, R’s nominate winning candidates in Delaware, Colorado, and Nevada and take the Senate majority.  The House is, obviously, more complicated.  As noted, a lot of economic models predicted the Dems losing 45 seats or so based on strictly structural factors (seats held and the state of the economy).  So, how do you get from 45-65?  I think you’ve got to credit the Tea Party enthusiasm for at least a good chunk of this.  Whereas nutty candidates like Sharron Angle and Ken Buck fall under the scrutiny of a Senate race, a more local-variety nut like NC-2’s Renee Ellmers gets less than a 10th the scrutiny.  The Tea Party helped to generate a lot of genuine grass roots enthusiasm (an a media narrative to boot) that surely helped contribute to the oft-mentioned enthusiasm gap.

I also think you have to look at the huge flood of corporate money unleashed thanks to Citizens United.  Finally, Chait (in a terrific post you should click on and read in its entirety) also makes the excellent point that the Democratic coalition as of 2008 become disproportionately dependent upon young people (who historically especially suck at voting in midterms).