A lesson from the Tea Party?

Probably to the chagrin of my former political science professors, I often forget that movements can have a discernible effect on election results without actually shifting the electorate to the right or left.

That’s because the demographic and ideological composition of those who show up to the polls matters a whole bunch. Turnout isn’t static, and voters decide elections, not electorates. This is pretty rudimentary stuff—GOTV—but I trust I’m not the only observer of the political scene who forgets it.

What jogged my memory is Theda Skocpol and Vanessa Williamson’s book on the Tea Party, the first scholarly book-length treatment of the subject. It’s a good book, even if there are few ground-breaking revelations (that is, unless you bought the left’s Tea Party Astroturf narrative). Writing on the 2010 mid-term election, Skocpol and Williamson argue: “It might be a coincidence that Tea Party supporters overlap with the older, white, middle-class Republicans who turned out enthusiastically and disproportionately in 2010, but probably not. … Tea Party grassroots participants were themselves highly motivated to vote in 2010, and they likely influenced other Republican and GOP-leaning voters, especially other older people like themselves.”

The Tea Party, visible and invigorated, helped conservative Republicans shake off their post-2008 ennui. While the Tea Party may have swayed some voters, strong turnout among Republican voting blocs and a poor environment for incumbent Democrats—moribund economy, mid-term election for the president’s party—was the principal reason the GOP picked up so many seats.

The question for my side is, how does the electoral stream of the democratic left increase turnout among demographic groups amenable to the left without merely buoying corporate Democrats?