If the 2013 elections are a premonition of what to expect in 2014, the Tea Party and the Republicans have a lot to worry about. In an Election Day in which the Tea Party lost almost every race it was in, but by margins small enough to suggest that the Tea Party was competitive and could have won, the trenches in the GOP Civil War have only been dug deeper.
From the mainstream side of the argument, the growing “kick all the bums out” sentiment that is growing among the public and a history of legislative impediments — whose single highlight currently revolves around harking the failures of the Patient Protection & Affordable Care Act’s health care insurance exchanges’ public implementation — are bolstering the interpretation from moderates’ wins in New Jersey, Virginia and Alabama that the Republican base is no longer responding to political extremism.
From the Tea Party side of the argument, however, it is more an issue that the Republicans are not conservative enough. In Virginia, where — for the first time in three decades — a governor has been elected of the same party as the sitting president, Republican lieutenant gubernatorial candidate E.W. Jackson and gubernatorial candidate Ken Cuccinelli took the opportunity to blame the Democrats for their losses, instead of addressing faults in their campaigns.
“They lied to us, they vilified us, they took the things we said and twisted them, turned them, contorted them, perverted them and said everything about us they could make up,” Jackson said during his concession speech of Democratic campaign spending “But folks, I stand before you unbroken, unbowed and unwilling to quit.”
Before the governor’s race was called, Virginia Republican Chairman Pat Mullins said, “Our candidates are decent, honest family men. They love their families, they love their God, they love their country and this commonwealth, but for the last six months they’ve been nonstop demonized by Democrats,” “[Democrats say] we hate women, we hate minorities, we hate everything. But that’s not who these people are.”
The centralist option
However, in New Jersey — a historically blue state that has reliably voted Democratic in presidential elections in recent history — the interpretation is different. There, Chris Christie, a centrist Republican, has won re-election by one of the largest margins in any state-based election in New Jersey history. In an interview with NBC News’s “Meet the Press,” Christie echoed the Republicans’ “autopsy” of the 2012 election — “The Growth & Opportunity Project.”
“I got 61 percent of the vote… in a blue state that had just re-elected Barack Obama a year ago by 17 points,” Christie said. “That was nearly a 40-point turnaround between voting for a Democrat at the top of the ticket and voting for a Republican. And, you know, getting 51 percent of the Hispanic vote, I’m very proud of that, because I’ve worked hard with the Hispanic community to let them see how our policies can help their families.”
Christie — who is seen with apprehension in the Republican Party due to his willingness to work and campaign with the president — represents the epicenter of the Republican in-fighting. With his support among moderates from both parties and his appeal toward independents, Christie — more than any other Republican — is best suited to face former Sec. of State Hillary Clinton for the presidency in 2016 among the current suite of potential nominees. According to a recent NBC/Esquire Magazine poll, 51 percent of all Americans see themselves as centrists, so Christie should be able to offer ample challenge to the Democrats.
Despite this, because of the extreme ideology of the current party, he is also the least likely to survive a Republican primary. When asked in an interview if Christie could unite the party’s factions, Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker and current host of CNN’s Crossfire, responded: “No. I don’t think Chris Christie has any interest in bridging that divide because he’ll run as an aggressive, Northeastern moderate who can get something done. I don’t see him using conservative language. He might be able to get nominated, but it will be running as a personality leader, not a movement leader.”
Chuck Henderson, a Tea Party activist from Manhattan, Kan., told the New York Times, “He won his re-election, bully for him, but for him to make the jump up the next rung of the ladder, well, he’s not going to find any support from the people I mix with.”
“We’re so frustrated with all this Christie talk we can’t see straight,” said Scott Hofstra, a Tea Party volunteer from Vine Grove, Ky. “He’s no more conservative than [Senate Majority Leader] Harry Reid [(D – Nev.)].”
The Tea Party, deconstructed
While the Tea Party may be more partisan than ever, its sway in the Republican Party may be eroding. According to a September 26 Gallup poll, support for the Tea Party is at a near-record low — 22 percent. With 27 percent explicitly opposing the Tea Party, 78 percent of all Americans are either against the conservative movement or have no definitive opinions of it. Only 38 percent of Republicans identify with the Tea Party, compared to 65 percent in 2010.
“U.S. support for the Tea Party is at a low ebb at a time when key issues of concern for the movement — funding for the Affordable Care Act and raising the U.S. debt ceiling — are focal points in Washington, with Tea Party-backed Sen. Ted Cruz prominently fighting both policies,” reported Gallup. “The discomfort he has created in the Republican caucus is merely emblematic of the ambivalence national Republicans feel toward the movement. Although few Republicans outright oppose the Tea Party, far more are neutral toward it than support it.”
If the geography of the Tea Party was taken into consideration — Congressional districts that elected a member of the Tea Party Caucus and/or have at least 10 individuals enrolled or registered in Tea Party-supporting or -leaning organizations per every 10,000 residents — one can see a few obvious things. First, the districts typically do not represent major cities, areas near transportation hubs or areas that have high minority populations. Second, these districts are centered in the South and the Lower Midwest. Finally, with the exceptions of Reps. Michele Bachmann (R – MN-6th), Vicky Hartzler (R – MO-4th), Cynthia Lummis (R – WY) and Diane Black (R – TN-6th), these districts are represented by white males.
For a party that — at its heights in 2010 — only had about 67,000 registered members throughout America, excluding those that state they sympathize with the Tea Party, the realities of the changing times are daunting. With white America to be surpassed by the Latino community as the nation’s majority by 2043, with once safe states — such as Virginia and Texas — increasingly coming into play and with minority votes — such as the black vote in the Virginia gubernatorial race — deciding more and more races, the old arguments that pandering only to the white Protestant voter will be enough to win elections are being generally panned.
This “small-world” vision, coupled with a rejection of the Republican Party’s traditional ally — the business community — has created a “world gone mad” situation in which the Tea Party — backed by the Senate Conservatives Fund and the Club for Growth — are primarying mainstream Republicans, and the mainstream — backed by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce — are primarying the Tea Party.
“The results in Virginia and Alabama will allow the Tea Party wing to keep alive an alternative narrative,” said one GOP strategist who was granted anonymity by the Washington Post. “They’re bolstered by a parallel universe of bloggers, talk radio hosts and their own political strategists — most of whom have never actually worked in campaigns, like at Heritage Action and FreedomWorks.”
Moving into 2014, both the mainstream Republicans and the Tea Party remained deadlocked — with millions of dollars in contributions buoying them — in a death spiral that threatens to sink the party as a whole. While it is unsure if the infighting will result in a party split or with the Tea Party capitulating, one thing is sure; until the party can stand together, it will continue to fall apart at the feet of the Democrats.