Tea Party Fizzles Out at Polls

However good the tea party movement may be at organizing rallies, a recent slew of primary defeats for tea party candidates shows the movement still has plenty to learn about translating grass-roots energy into votes. In Texas, Illinois, and New York, tea party-affiliated candidates have been soundly trounced at the polls—and the problem may be a lack of both money and skills.

“The movement has more, ‘This is what we believe,’ than, ‘This is what we are going to do about it,’” one defeated candidate told Politico. Tea partiers still need to learn how to communicate with mainstream voters about policy, and they also need far more money than they're currently raising if they hope to launch strong challenges to well-funded incumbents, critics say.