Christian Nationalism and the Tea Party Movement
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Christian Nationalism and the Tea Party Movement
The Tea Party movement emerged as an influential force in American conservative politics during the first years of the Barack Obama presidency. Although it was often presented as a movement centered on taxation, federal spending, constitutional government, and opposition to an expanding federal role, research into its supporters revealed substantial overlap with constituencies associated with the Religious Right, evangelical Christianity, social conservatism, and beliefs connecting Christianity with American national identity.
The relationship between the Tea Party and Christian nationalism was not one of complete equivalence. Tea Party organizations and supporters included fiscal conservatives, libertarians, religious conservatives, Republican activists, and citizens with varying levels of religious involvement. Nevertheless, polling, academic research, contemporary journalism, and later historical scholarship found that conservative Christian networks were an important component of the movement and that ideas about religion, national identity, social change, and the meaning of America frequently intersected with Tea Party activism.
Religious Composition of the Tea Party
Polling conducted during the movement's rise found that white evangelical Protestants were disproportionately represented among Tea Party supporters. Pew Research Center surveys reported particularly strong Tea Party support among white evangelicals compared with several other religious groups. Religious conservatives who already identified with the Christian Right were also considerably more likely to support the Tea Party.
Research by the Public Religion Research Institute similarly documented substantial overlap between the movements. Its 2010 American Values Survey found that nearly half of people identifying with the Tea Party also considered themselves part of the conservative Christian or Religious Right movement. Among Tea Party supporters who identified as Christian, the overlap was still greater.
The relationship, however, was not universal. Some Tea Party supporters had little connection to organized evangelical politics, while libertarian and secular conservatives sometimes differed from Christian conservatives on abortion, same-sex marriage, and other social questions. Academic studies therefore generally portray the Tea Party as a coalition containing several conservative currents rather than as simply a renamed version of the Religious Right.
The Religious Right and Tea Party Coalition
The emergence of the Tea Party occurred after several decades of organized conservative Christian political activism. Organizations and political figures associated with the Religious Right therefore already possessed fundraising networks, voter lists, churches, activist organizations, media connections, and campaign experience that could intersect with the new movement.
Figures such as Ralph Reed sought to connect evangelical political networks with Tea Party activism. Reed's Faith and Freedom Coalition represented one effort to combine established Christian conservative organizing with the new energy produced by the Tea Party. Contemporary reporting from Values Voter Summit gatherings likewise documented efforts to reconcile the Tea Party's emphasis on limited government and economic issues with the Religious Right's continuing concern about abortion, marriage, sexuality, and religion in public life.
This coalition allowed economic and social conservatism to coexist even when participants differed in emphasis. Tea Party rhetoric could focus primarily on taxation, government spending, health-care reform, or constitutional limits while Christian conservative activists continued organizing around religious and cultural issues.
Christian America and National Identity
One point of intersection involved beliefs about the religious character of the United States. Research found that many Tea Party supporters believed Christianity occupied a special place in American national history and identity. Such beliefs could appear in appeals to the Founding Fathers, constitutional originalism, religious liberty, public prayer, and claims that the country had departed from principles associated with its founding.
These ideas overlap with what scholars increasingly describe as Christian nationalism: a collection of beliefs that connects American national identity with Christianity and regards the country's history, institutions, or political order as having a distinctly Christian foundation or purpose.
The uploaded research also shows that belief in a Christian America was not confined to highly observant evangelicals. Some studies found Christian-national ideas among Tea Party participants whose personal religious involvement was comparatively limited. This distinction is important because Christian nationalism can function as a form of political and national identity as well as an expression of conventional religious devotion.
Populism, Constitutionalism, and Political Rhetoric
Tea Party activism drew heavily on populist language contrasting ordinary citizens with political elites. Activists frequently presented themselves as defending individual liberty, limited government, constitutional principles, and traditional American values against political institutions they believed had become too powerful or unresponsive.
Religious narratives sometimes operated alongside these political themes. Speakers and activists could describe political problems as evidence of moral or spiritual decline, portray national renewal in religious terms, or invoke historical stories about ministers, the American Revolution, and the country's supposedly Christian founding.
Glenn Beck's 2010 Restoring Honor rally became one prominent example of the merging of political and religious language. Contemporary reporting debated whether such events represented Tea Party politics, evangelical revivalism, conservative populism, or some combination of all three.
Evangelical Mobilization and Tea Party Candidates
The overlap between Tea Party and evangelical politics became especially visible in the 2010 and 2012 election cycles. Candidates such as Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry, Sarah Palin, and Christine O'Donnell appealed in varying degrees to constituencies that included both Tea Party activists and religious conservatives.
Rick Perry's 2011 prayer gathering in Houston illustrated the convergence particularly clearly. The event brought thousands of evangelical Christians together around prayer, national crisis, and spiritual renewal while Perry was preparing for a presidential campaign. Contemporary coverage treated the gathering as both a religious event and an important development in Republican presidential politics.
Other candidates faced similar pressures to appeal simultaneously to Tea Party voters concerned with government and spending and evangelical voters concerned with religious and social issues. Republican politicians and conservative organizations consequently worked to maintain both constituencies within a broader electoral coalition.
Race, Demographic Change, and National Identity
A substantial scholarly literature examined the relationship between Tea Party support, race, demographic change, and perceptions of American identity. Studies reached different conclusions about the relative importance of fiscal conservatism, racial attitudes, authoritarianism, partisan identity, and social conservatism, but many found that attitudes toward racial and cultural change were relevant to understanding portions of Tea Party support.
Researchers Christopher Parker and Matt Barreto emphasized perceptions among some supporters that social and demographic change threatened a familiar conception of America. Other researchers studied connections between racial attitudes and Tea Party identification while attempting to separate those effects from broader conservative ideology and Republican partisanship.
These findings became particularly important in later scholarship on white Christian nationalism. In this literature, religion, race, nostalgia, political authority, and national identity are often treated as overlapping rather than independent dimensions of political behavior.
Islam and Religious Boundaries
The Tea Party period also coincided with controversies over Islam, mosques, immigration, and the boundaries of American national belonging. Local Tea Party activists participated in some campaigns opposing mosque construction or warning about Islamic law, while polling showed notable differences between Tea Party supporters and opponents in attitudes toward Islam.
The debate over a proposed mosque in Temecula, California, illustrates how local Tea Party activism sometimes intersected with religious and cultural disputes. Similar controversies around the country connected questions about national security and immigration with broader arguments about whether Islam belonged within prevailing definitions of American identity.
Later Christian-nationalist movements inherited some of these themes, particularly arguments concerning religious identity, immigration, cultural change, and perceived threats to a traditional conception of the nation.
From the Tea Party to Trump-Era Politics
The Tea Party declined as a distinct organizational label after its peak during the early 2010s, but many of its activists, constituencies, media networks, and political themes remained influential. Research examining Republican voters found considerable continuity between earlier Tea Party supporters and some of Donald Trump's strongest supporters.
The transition was not seamless. Trump's political style and policy priorities sometimes differed from the Tea Party's earlier emphasis on balanced budgets, government spending, and constitutional restraint. Nevertheless, themes involving political outsiders, distrust of institutions, immigration, national decline, cultural displacement, and the restoration of American greatness provided areas of continuity.
Later scholarship on white Christian nationalism consequently places the Tea Party within a longer political development rather than treating it as an isolated movement. In this interpretation, the Tea Party helped mobilize constituencies and political narratives that subsequently became important components of Trump-era Republican politics and the broader MAGA movement.
Continuities and Differences
The Tea Party and Christian nationalism should not be treated as identical phenomena. Tea Party politics contained strong economic and antigovernment elements that did not necessarily depend upon religion, while Christian nationalism encompasses beliefs about Christianity and national identity that extend beyond Tea Party organizations or fiscal conservatism.
Likewise, not every evangelical Christian supported the Tea Party, and not every Tea Party supporter was evangelical or identified with the Religious Right. Research also identifies important differences among libertarians, economic conservatives, social conservatives, Catholics, evangelicals, and other constituencies operating within the broader conservative coalition.
The significance of the Tea Party for the history of Christian nationalism lies instead in the degree to which previously distinct political traditions could operate within the same movement. Fiscal conservatism, evangelical activism, Republican partisanship, populism, constitutional rhetoric, nostalgia, and beliefs about Christian America frequently reinforced one another even when individual supporters did not embrace all of them.
Historical Significance
The Tea Party represented an important transitional period in twenty-first-century American conservative politics. It brought new activists into electoral politics, challenged Republican Party leaders, encouraged grassroots organization, and provided a political framework through which economic concerns could be linked with broader anxieties about culture, religion, demographic change, and national identity.
At the same time, established Religious Right organizations gained opportunities to connect their networks with a movement whose public image initially emphasized taxation and government rather than traditional culture-war issues. The resulting coalition demonstrated that economic populism and conservative Christianity could coexist and often reinforce one another.
Research conducted after the Tea Party's peak has increasingly examined these developments as part of the history of contemporary Christian nationalism. From this perspective, the movement served as one bridge between the Religious Right of the late twentieth century and the Christian-nationalist, populist, and MAGA-oriented politics that became increasingly visible in the following decade.
Conclusion
The Tea Party movement cannot be reduced to Christian nationalism, nor can Christian nationalism be understood solely through the Tea Party. The evidence assembled in the uploaded sources instead shows substantial overlap among Tea Party activists, white evangelical Protestants, Christian conservatives, Republican voters, and people who associated American national identity with Christianity.
The movement combined concerns about government power and economic policy with arguments about religion, constitutionalism, cultural change, race, immigration, and the meaning of American identity. Established Religious Right organizations participated in that coalition while candidates and activists learned to appeal simultaneously to economic conservatives and religious voters.
Although the Tea Party eventually became less visible as a distinct movement, many of the constituencies, organizations, narratives, and political concerns associated with it continued into later Republican politics. For that reason, scholarship on contemporary Christian nationalism frequently treats the Tea Party era as an important stage in the development of the religious, populist, and nationalist currents that became more prominent in American politics during the Trump era.
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Surveys, Polling, and Core Research
1. | Ruth Braunstein and Malaena Taylor | Sociology of Religion | March 7, 2017
Finds that the Tea Party was more religiously heterogeneous than the Religious Right while showing that belief in America as a Christian nation extended even to many less-religious Tea Party participants.
2. | Melissa Deckman, Dan Cox, Robert Jones, and Betsy Cooper | Politics and Religion | July 1, 2016
Uses survey evidence to investigate how evangelical religious identity and Tea Party affiliation interacted with attitudes toward markets, government, and economic policy.
3. | Daniel R. Dileo | Horizons | November 23, 2015
Evaluates Tea Party economic and political ideas through Catholic social teaching, illustrating tensions between conservative religious identity and competing Christian approaches to government and social responsibility.
4. | Public Religion Research Institute | Public Religion Research Institute | 2015
Examines political nostalgia, cultural anxiety, immigration, religion, and national identity and documents continuing overlap between Tea Party supporters and Christian conservatives.
5. | Angelia R. Wilson | Political Insight | April 1, 2014
Reviews the Tea Party's development and analyzes the ideological coalitions that enabled it to become an influential force within Republican politics.
6. | PRRI Staff | Public Religion Research Institute | October 29, 2013
Explores the complicated relationship among libertarians, Tea Party supporters, and the Christian Right, showing areas of overlap as well as significant disagreements over social issues.
7. | Public Religion Research Institute | Public Religion Research Institute | 2013
Uses national survey data to distinguish libertarian voters from Tea Party and Christian conservative constituencies and documents areas where the groups converged politically.
8. | Angelia R. Wilson and Cynthia Burack | New Political Science | May 21, 2012
Examines how Tea Party rhetoric brought economic conservatives and Christian Right activists into a shared coalition while allowing religious conservatives to retain concerns over social issues.
9. | PRRI Staff | Public Religion Research Institute | November 7, 2011
Compares Tea Party supporters with white evangelical Protestants and identifies common views concerning government, social change, religion, and American identity.
10. | Pew Research Center | Pew Research Center | April 8, 2011
Tracks changing public attitudes toward the Tea Party and places the movement within the broader Republican and conservative electorate.
11. | Michael Suh and Scott Keeter | Pew Research Center | April 5, 2011
Reviews survey estimates of Tea Party support and explains how differences in polling questions affected estimates of the movement's size.
12. | Vanessa Williamson, Theda Skocpol, and John Coggin | Perspectives on Politics | March 15, 2011
Examines Tea Party supporters, organizations, media networks, and political elites and argues that the movement reshaped Republican conservatism rather than functioning simply as a spontaneous anti-government uprising.
13. | Pew Research Center | Pew Research Center | February 23, 2011
Examines the religious composition of the Tea Party and finds that supporters were disproportionately white evangelical Protestants, socially conservative, and more likely than the public overall to agree with the religious right.
14. | Brookings Institution | Brookings Institution | November 17, 2010
Examines the role that religion and social issues played in the 2010 midterm elections amid the Tea Party's emphasis on government spending and constitutionalism.
15. | PRRI Staff | Public Religion Research Institute | October 8, 2010
Reports that nearly half of Americans identifying with the Tea Party also identified with the Christian conservative movement, illustrating significant organizational and ideological overlap.
16. | Kim Lawton | Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly / PBS | October 8, 2010
Investigates cooperation between Tea Party activists and religious conservatives and considers whether economic issues were displacing or complementing traditional culture-war concerns.
17. | Robert P. Jones | Public Religion Research Institute | October 6, 2010
Reports extensive overlap between the Tea Party and Christian conservative movements, including findings that many Tea Party supporters believed the United States had always been and remained a Christian nation.
18. | Brookings Institution | Brookings Institution | October 5, 2010
Presents research and discussion concerning the relationship between Tea Party activists, the Religious Right, evangelical voters, and the changing American religious landscape.
19. | Pew Research Center | Pew Research Center | April 18, 2010
Provides early polling on Tea Party attitudes toward federal power, government intervention, and political institutions during the movement's rapid rise.
20. | Brookings Institution | Brookings Institution | 2010
Examines religion in the 2010 elections and discusses how older religious-right constituencies interacted with newer conservative movements, including the Tea Party.
Ideology, Race, Populism, and National Identity
21. | George Ehrhardt | Social Movement Studies | October 24, 2019
Studies local Tea Party leaders and shows how national conservative themes were interpreted and organized through local activist networks.
Places the Tea Party within the broader mobilization of American conservative civil society and discusses its relationship to nationalism, immigration politics, and later populist activism.
23. | Khadijah Costley White | Oxford University Press | September 20, 2018
Studies how Tea Party activists developed a recognizable political brand through rallies, media, symbolism, race, and appeals to American identity.
24. | Bryan T. Gervais and Irwin L. Morris | The Washington Post | September 7, 2018
Draws connections between Tea Party activism and later Trump-era Republican politics while emphasizing organizational and attitudinal continuities.
25. | John Levi Martin, James P. Murphy, and Rick Moore | Sociological Forum | April 2, 2018
Compares Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street participants and examines differences in ideology, social background, political dissatisfaction, and movement identity.
26. | Jonathan Havercroft and Justin Murphy | Social Science Quarterly | March 7, 2018
Tests competing descriptions of Tea Party ideology, including libertarianism and authoritarianism, and finds a more complex combination of ideological attitudes.
27. | Joseph DiGrazia | Sociological Methods & Research | October 14, 2015
Develops state-level measures of Tea Party mobilization using internet search data, providing tools for studying the movement's geographic distribution.
28. | Daniel Tope, Justin T. Pickett, and Ted Chiricos | Social Science Research | May 2015
Investigates whether attitudes toward racial and ethnic minorities were associated with Tea Party membership after accounting for broader political ideology and demographic variables.
29. | Christopher S. Parker and Matt A. Barreto | Princeton University Press | October 26, 2014
Examines who joined and supported the Tea Party and explores the movement's attitudes toward politics, social change, race, and national identity.
30. | Christopher S. Parker and Matt A. Barreto | Princeton University Press | October 26, 2014
Develops a theoretical explanation of Tea Party support centered on perceptions that social and political change threatened a familiar conception of America.
31. | Christopher S. Parker and Matt A. Barreto | Princeton University Press | October 26, 2014
Investigates Tea Party claims surrounding liberty, patriotism, and American identity and examines how supporters interpreted those concepts.
32. | Theda Skocpol and Vanessa Williamson | Oxford Bibliographies | March 19, 2013
Provides a scholarly guide to research on the Tea Party, including literature on ideology, organization, race, conservative institutions, and the movement's relationship to Republican politics.
33. | Matt Guardino and Dean Snyder | New Political Science | January 3, 2013
Examines the relationship between corporate news coverage, right-wing populism, economic conservatism, and the emergence of the Tea Party.
34. | Eric D. Knowles et al. | PLOS ONE | 2013
Uses longitudinal data to examine relationships among racial attitudes, political ideology, and Tea Party support during the Obama presidency.
35. | Martin Cohen | University of California Press | August 14, 2012
Analyzes the Tea Party's institutional relationship with the Republican Party and the challenges involved in converting movement activism into sustained party influence.
36. | Leonard Zeskind | Critical Sociology | July 13, 2012
Places the Tea Party within a longer history of racial politics and argues that ideas of national dispossession and demographic change were important to parts of the movement.
37. | Chip Berlet | Critical Sociology | April 19, 2012
Examines Tea Party rhetoric through the history of right-wing populism and anti-subversion movements, including accusations that political opponents threatened American freedom and identity.
38. | George Lundskow | Critical Sociology | April 18, 2012
Analyzes authoritarian themes within Tea Party politics and discusses how perceptions of social disorder and national decline influenced movement rhetoric.
39. | Jules Boykoff and Eulalie Laschever | Social Movement Studies | November 22, 2011
Analyzes media framing of the Tea Party and considers how journalistic coverage contributed to the movement's public identity and political legitimacy.
40. | Anup Kumar | Javnost - The Public | 2011
Studies the Tea Party as a form of populist political discourse and considers how activists constructed distinctions between ordinary Americans, political elites, and perceived outsiders.
From the Tea Party to Trump-Era Christian Nationalism
41. | Richard T. Hughes et al. | University of Illinois Press | February 25, 2025
Examines evangelical portrayals of Barack Obama and analyzes how Tea Party populism interacted with efforts to preserve a particular vision of a white Christian America.
42. | Richard T. Hughes et al. | University of Illinois Press | February 25, 2025
Reflects on the historical development of white Christian nationalism and discusses the transition from Tea Party-era mobilization to Trump-era evangelical politics.
43. | Joseph Roso | Socius | 2025
Examines xenophobic and Islamophobic rhetoric among evangelical opinion leaders and traces rhetorical strategies that had also appeared in Tea Party-era politics.
44. | Philip S. Gorski, Samuel L. Perry, and Jemar Tisby | Oxford University Press | April 21, 2022
Places the Tea Party within a longer development of white Christian nationalism and traces themes involving freedom, social order, violence, race, and national identity into later MAGA politics.
45. | Samuel L. Perry et al. | Sociology of Religion | 2021
Examines the relationship between Christian nationalism, individual liberty, government authority, and opposition to COVID-19 restrictions while connecting these ideas to earlier Tea Party-style antigovernment discourse.
46. | Samuel Stroope, Heather M. Rackin, and Paul Froese | Socius | 2021
Studies Christian nationalism and attitudes toward immigrants and draws on earlier findings showing that Christian-national identity could extend beyond conventionally religious Tea Party participants.
47. | The Washington Post | The Washington Post | December 4, 2020
Examines how Tea Party themes were incorporated into Trump-era conservative populism and how priorities shifted as the Republican coalition changed.
48. | Pew Research Center | Pew Research Center | May 16, 2019
Uses longitudinal survey data to show that many of Trump's strongest Republican supporters had previously identified with or supported the Tea Party.
49. | Deana A. Rohlinger and Leslie Bunnage | Social Media + Society | April 2017
Investigates whether Tea Party activist networks persisted into the Trump era and considers how social media helped maintain political activism after the movement's peak.
50. | The Monkey Cage | The Washington Post | December 1, 2016
Explores why many Tea Party supporters ultimately backed Donald Trump despite earlier movement rhetoric emphasizing constitutionalism, limited government, and fiscal restraint.
51. | Brookings Institution | Brookings Institution | 2016
Examines continuities between Tea Party activism and the political coalition surrounding Donald Trump's presidency.
Religion and the Tea Party in Contemporary Reporting
52. | Jay Green | Christianity Today | October 2012
Discusses evangelical involvement in political power and places contemporary conservative Christian activism within a broader historical context.
53. | Daniel Burke | Christianity Today / Religion News Service | September 22, 2011
Reports on evangelical support for Rick Perry and the intersection of Tea Party conservatism, presidential politics, and organized evangelical activism.
54. | Theo Hobson | The Guardian | August 31, 2011
Discusses Tea Party invocations of the Founding Fathers and considers the historical relationship between religion and America's founding political culture.
55. | Amanda Marcotte | The Guardian | February 25, 2011
Examines the social-conservative and religious constituencies within the Tea Party and argues that its agenda extended beyond taxes and government spending.
56. | Andrew Neil | The Guardian | October 31, 2010
Reports from Tea Party events and profiles activists, candidates, religious conservatives, and populist themes during the 2010 midterm campaign.
57. | Sarah Posner | The Guardian | October 12, 2010
Discusses survey evidence showing substantial overlap between the Tea Party and Religious Right and questions portrayals of the movement as exclusively concerned with fiscal policy.
58. | The Guardian | The Guardian | October 4, 2010
Profiles several major Tea Party organizations, illustrating the movement's decentralized structure and differences among national and local groups.
59. | David Brody, Wendy Wright, and David P. Gushee | Christianity Today | October 2010
Presents competing Christian perspectives on combining evangelical religion with Tea Party-style populist politics.
60. | Tiffany Stanley | The New Republic | September 20, 2010
Examines whether the Tea Party's rise could revive or restructure the Christian Right by bringing religious conservatives into a broader populist coalition.
61. | Ruth Marcus | The Washington Post | August 31, 2010
Examines Glenn Beck's use of religious rhetoric at the height of Tea Party activism and the blending of spiritual renewal with conservative political mobilization.
62. | The Washington Post | The Washington Post | August 31, 2010
Reports on debate surrounding Glenn Beck's combination of religion and politics and reactions from religious leaders and conservative activists.
63. | Sarah Posner | Religion Dispatches | August 31, 2010
Examines evangelical engagement with Glenn Beck and contrasts his political-religious rhetoric with earlier intellectual currents in the Christian Right.
64. | Wayne Slater | The Dallas Morning News | August 10, 2010
Explores debate among conservatives over whether the Tea Party's emphasis on taxes and government spending would reduce the prominence of abortion, marriage, and other religious-right issues.
65. | Richard Adams | The Guardian | February 6, 2010
Reports on Sarah Palin's prominent role at the first national Tea Party convention and her growing symbolic importance to the movement.
66. | Michelle Goldberg | The American Prospect | January 12, 2010
Reports on early efforts to connect Tea Party activists with established Religious Right organizations and social-conservative political networks.
67. | PBS NewsHour | PBS NewsHour | 2010
Reports on Glenn Beck's Restoring Honor rally and evaluates its uncertain relationship to organized Tea Party groups and the broader conservative movement.
Evangelicals, Prayer Politics, and Tea Party Candidates
68. | The Washington Post / On Faith | The Washington Post | August 21, 2012
Examines the Romney-Ryan ticket as evidence of changes in Republican religious politics following the Tea Party's rise.
69. | Forrest Wilder | The Texas Observer | August 8, 2011
Examines Rick Perry's religious rhetoric, political ambitions, evangelical networks, and relationship with conservative Christian activists.
70. | Ewen MacAskill | The Guardian | August 7, 2011
Reports on the tens of thousands attending Rick Perry's prayer rally and the event's connections to evangelical political activism.
71. | Paul West | Los Angeles Times | August 7, 2011
Reports on Perry's Houston prayer rally and the effort to mobilize evangelical conservatives around themes of national crisis and spiritual renewal.
72. | Thanh Tan and Jay Root | The Texas Tribune | August 6, 2011
Reports on Rick Perry's large evangelical prayer rally and the convergence of religious mobilization, conservative politics, and presidential ambitions.
73. | Perry Bacon Jr. | The Washington Post | August 6, 2011
Describes evangelical participation in Rick Perry's prayer event and its significance for conservative voters during the 2012 Republican presidential campaign.
74. | Perry Bacon Jr. and Nia-Malika Henderson | The Washington Post | August 5, 2011
Previews Perry's prayer gathering and discusses the political significance of evangelical voters in the emerging Republican presidential contest.
75. | Ewen MacAskill | The Guardian | August 5, 2011
Covers criticism and support surrounding Perry's explicitly Christian prayer event and debate over religion's role in electoral politics.
76. | Paul West | Los Angeles Times | August 5, 2011
Reports Perry's argument that his prayer gathering was religious rather than partisan while discussing its significance for Republican politics.
77. | Brian Montopoli | CBS News | June 6, 2011
Reports on Perry's announcement of a national prayer event framed around the claim that the United States faced a profound social and spiritual crisis.
78. | The Washington Post | The Washington Post | June 2, 2011
Reports Republican attempts to increase evangelical political participation as the party prepared for the 2012 presidential election.
79. | The Washington Post | The Washington Post | May 23, 2011
Covers Tim Pawlenty's presidential launch and the competition among Republican candidates for Tea Party and religious-conservative support.
Religious Right Organizations and Tea Party Coalition Building
80. | CBS News | CBS News | 2012
Discusses Ralph Reed's assessment of Republican presidential politics and the importance of evangelical and conservative grassroots voters.
81. | Peter Montgomery | Right Wing Watch / People For the American Way | September 21, 2010
Documents Tea Party rhetoric at the Values Voter Summit and reports how prominent Christian conservative activists publicly embraced the movement.
82. | Jim Acosta | CNN | September 20, 2010
Reports from the Values Voter Summit and describes the increasingly visible convergence between Tea Party activists and established religious conservatives.
83. | Kathleen Hennessey | Los Angeles Times | September 17, 2010
Reports Republican efforts to reassure Christian conservative “values voters” that social issues remained important despite the Tea Party's emphasis on economic issues.
84. | Kathleen Hennessey | Los Angeles Times | September 17, 2010
Covers Senator Jim DeMint's argument that Tea Party candidates strengthened the Republican Party and shows the movement's reception among social conservatives.
85. | Sarah Posner | Religion Dispatches | September 13, 2010
Examines Ralph Reed's efforts to combine Christian Right organizing techniques with Tea Party energy and conservative voter mobilization.
86. | Religion Dispatches | Religion Dispatches | March 13, 2010
Reports on early efforts by Ralph Reed's Faith and Freedom Coalition to build links between Tea Party activists and established evangelical political networks.
Tea Party Supporters and Grassroots Identity
87. | PRRI Staff | Public Religion Research Institute | October 6, 2011
Summarizes polling comparing Tea Party supporters and white evangelical Protestants on religion, government, economic policy, cultural change, and political identity.
88. | University of Washington News | University of Washington | March 28, 2011
Summarizes Christopher Parker's research finding significant differences between Tea Party conservatives and other conservatives on race, religion, Barack Obama, and perceptions of social change.
89. | Gary Younge | The Guardian | November 7, 2010
Places Tea Party rhetoric within longer traditions of American conservative populism and debates claims that the movement represented an entirely new political phenomenon.
90. | Patrik Jonsson and Brad Knickerbocker | The Christian Science Monitor | September 29, 2010
Reviews the Tea Party's origins, supporters, electoral influence, organizational structure, and policy priorities during the 2010 midterm campaign.
91. | Victoria Kim | Los Angeles Times | September 26, 2010
Reports on a Tea Party rally in Beverly Hills and illustrates the movement's grassroots rhetoric, political concerns, and activist culture.
92. | CBS News | CBS News | 2010
Presents polling on Tea Party supporters, including religious attendance, evangelical identification, political ideology, and attitudes toward government and social issues.
93. | Diane D. Blair Center of Southern Politics and Society | University of Arkansas | 2010
Reports polling that compares Tea Party supporters with other conservatives, including attitudes toward race, social change, government, and the nation's future.
Historical Memory, Islam, and Christian America
94. | The Washington Post | The Washington Post | November 8, 2023
Traces conservative Christian activism in suburban Tennessee from Tea Party-era organizations and anti-Sharia campaigns into later Christian-nationalist and MAGA political networks.
95. | The Washington Post | The Washington Post | October 15, 2021
Examines the modern conservative Christian use of the Revolutionary-era “Black Robed Regiment” story and discusses how historical narratives have been used to support claims about America's Christian political origins.
96. | Paul Harris | The Guardian | June 18, 2011
Profiles Michele Bachmann as a leading Tea Party figure and examines the intersection of her evangelical Christian beliefs, social conservatism, and Tea Party political appeal.
97. | Sahil Kapur | The Guardian | November 8, 2010
Examines Tea Party-backed candidates whose positions on church-state separation and religion became controversial during the 2010 election.
98. | Sandhya Somashekhar and Perry Bacon Jr. | The Washington Post | September 19, 2010
Examines Christine O'Donnell's rise as a Tea Party candidate, including her earlier Christian conservative activism and positions on social issues.
99. | Ewen MacAskill | The Guardian | September 15, 2010
Profiles Christine O'Donnell after her Tea Party-backed Delaware primary victory and discusses her socially conservative and religious political background.
100. | Phil Willon | Los Angeles Times | July 28, 2010
Reports on opposition to a proposed mosque in Temecula, California, including participation by activists associated with the local Tea Party movement.
