Empirical Research In The Relation Between Tea Party Movement And Voting Behavior In America

Tea Party Movement arose in America in 2009,which is a social movement that opposes President Obama's Democratic administration.It advocates that America is supposed to have a limited government and the supremacy of United States Constitution should be upheld,and tax and financial deficits should be cut.Tea Party Movement is inclined to conservatism and its supporters usually take the right wing views that are against abortion,gun control and homosexual rights.Tea Party Movement is well-organized and appeals in a unified way.It gained political and economic support like money,media resources by having a close relation with the Republican Party.We can make out that Tea Party Movement may have significant influence on election,in terms of facts that many Republican candidates endorsed by Tea Party Movement were elected congressmen,Republicans took back the majority of Senate owing to Tea Party Movement in 2010,and Republican President candidate Donald Trump was endorsed by Tea Party Movement during his campaign in 2016.My study chooses 2012 President Election survey data provided by American National Election Studies Center(ANES)as the basis of the empirical research.It attempts to analyze how Tea Party Movement supporters' voting behavior was influenced.And we can conclude that social demographical characteristics,party identification and issues have significant influence on Tea Party Movement supporters,voting behavior.Tea 'Party Movement supporters'party identification is inclined to the Republican Party.There are eight issues that have significant influence on Tea Party Movement supporters' voting behavior,such as tax,medical insurance,gun control,defense spending,Afghanistan War,abortion,environment and dealing with crime.It indicates that there are three characteristics of Tea Party Movement supporters' voting behavior by analyzing survey data of 2012 and 2016.First,Tea Party Movement supporters' party identification is stable,which is leaning towards Republican Party.The proportion of Republican's party identification keeps almost unchanged in both elections.Tea Party Movement supporters' party identification can also be seen as acknowledging Republican's Conservative ideology.Second,the factor of candidates is influential.Comparing with Mitt Romney,the Republican's Presidential Candidate in 2012,Tea Party Movement supporters are not satisfied with Donald Trump,the Republican's Presidential Candidate in 2016.As a result,Trump did not gain as much support as Romney did in last election.Tea Party Movement supporters expressed their discontent by votes.Third,Conservative values dominates views of issues.However,the proportion of favoring Conservative views declined in 2016 Election.It proves that the factor of issues is a kind of short-termed factors,which can change easily.