page_title: Americans for Prosperity
section_title: Tea Party and 2010 midterm election
hierarchical_section_title: Americans for Prosperity / Tea Party and 2010 midterm election
caption_attribution_description: English: Sarah Palin at the Americans for Prosperity-run Wisconsin 2011 Tax Day Tea Party Rally.
context_page_description: Americans for Prosperity, founded in 2004, is a libertarian/conservative political advocacy group in the United States funded by David Koch and Charles Koch. As the Koch brothers' primary political advocacy group, it is one of the most influential American conservative organizations.
  After the 2009 inauguration of President Barack Obama, AFP helped transform the Tea Party movement into a political force. It organized significant opposition to Obama administration initiatives such as global warming regulation, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the expansion of Medicaid and economic stimulus. It helped turn back cap and trade, the major environmental proposal of Obama's first term. AFP advocated for limits on the collective bargaining rights of public-sector trade unions and for right-to-work laws, and it opposed raising the federal minimum wage. AFP played an active role in the achievement of the Republican majority in the House of Representatives in 2010 and in the Senate in 2014.
  In the 2014 mid-term election cycle, AFP led all groups, other than political action committees, in spending on political television advertising.
context_section_description: AFP helped transform the nascent Tea Party movement into a political force.
  AFP supported the Tea Party movement by obtaining permits and supplying speakers for rallies. AFP helped organize and publicize a "Porkulus"-themed protest on the state capitol steps in Denver, Colorado on February 17, 2009, in conjunction with Obama signing the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. Within hours of CNBC on-air editor Rick Santelli's remarks on February 19, 2009, that criticized the Act and called for a "Chicago tea party," AFP registered and launched the website "TaxDayTeaParty.com," calling for protests against Obama. AFP had a lead role in organizing Taxpayer Tea Party rallies in Sacramento, Austin, and Madison in April 2009. AFP was one of the leading organizers of the September 2009 Taxpayer March on Washington, also known as the "9/12 Tea Party," according to The Guardian. On April 16, 2011, former Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin was the keynote speaker at an AFP annual tax day tea party rally at the state capitol in Madison, Wisconsin.
  In the 2010 midterm elections, AFP played a major role in achieving a Republican majority in the U.S. House of Representatives. AFP supported tea party groups, purchased political advertisements, and sponsored a nationwide bus tour themed "November is Coming" to recruit organizers and canvassers. AFP helped Tea Party groups organize voter registration drives. An AFP website offered "Tea party Talking Points." The organization provided Tea Party activists with education on policy, training in methods, and lists of politicians to target. In October 2010, AFP sponsored a workshop on the political use of the internet at a Tea Party convention in Virginia. AFP said it spent $40 million on rallies, phone banks, and canvassing during the 2010 election cycle. Of the six freshman Republican members of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce in 2010, five benefited from AFP advertisements and grassroots activity.
  David Weigel wrote in Slate that AFP "in the Tea Party era evolved into one of the most powerful conservative organizations in electoral politics." AFP and the Tea Party share many of the same principles. In 2010, AFP was one of the most influential organizations in the Tea Party movement, and the largest in terms of membership and spending. According to Bloomberg News, with AFP the Koch brothers "harnessed the Tea Party's energy in service of their own policy goals, including deregulation and lower taxes....As the Tea Party movement grew in the aftermath of Obama's election, the Kochs positioned Americans for Prosperity as the Tea Party's staunchest ally".
caption: Sarah Palin at the Americans for Prosperity-run Wisconsin 2011 Tax Day Tea Party Rally on April 16, 2011.
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