ABSTRACT
The Tea Party movement gathered force starting in early 2009 with calls for reducing the $1.3 trillion federal budget deficit and stopping federal extensions of power to save the American auto industry and regulate health care. The famed lack of formal structure among Tea Partiers only enlarges the power of their beltway allies in agenda setting. Some of the beltway groups supporting local Tea Party activists, like Americans for Prosperity and FreedomWorks, seemed created in order to nurture a libertarian voting base so that the GOP would not be as dependent on Christian conservatives to win office. Tea partiers show greater racial grievance than white evangelicals as a whole (a group that includes some liberals). Fifty eight percent of Tea Partiers say minorities get too much government attention while the figure is 38 percent for white evangelicals (Public Religion Research Institute 2010). Other surveys by Public Religion Research Institute reveal Tea Partier opposition to diversity and immigration.
