(CNN) - The Tea Party movement has grown more unpopular among Americans with nearly half now seeing it in an unfavorable light, according to a new poll. The sentiment will be closely watched by both sides of the aisle for its potential influence as the 2012 presidential campaign gears up.
According to a new USA Today/Gallup poll, 47 percent of Americans view the Tea Party movement in an unfavorable light while 33 percent hold a favorable view.
Sixty percent of Republicans support the Tea Party while 73 percent of Democrats feel negatively towards the movement.
The 14-point gap between the parties is the largest since Gallup started following American views of the Tea Party in March of 2010. At that point, 40 percent of Americans had an unfavorable take on the group while support was at 37 percent.
Results of a CNN/Opinion Research poll conducted in March found the same sentiment as the new Gallup poll. Forty-seven percent of all responders viewed the Tea Party in an unfavorable light, a rating that had dropped five points since December.
The Tea Party originated in early 2009 as a protest movement against the Troubled Asset Relief Program and in opposition of the federal stimulus plan passed through Congress the same year. Tea Party activists helped Republicans gain back control of the House during the midterm elections and the grassroots movement built a strong base during the past two years.
The USA Today/Gallup poll surveyed 1,013 adults by telephone from April 20th to the 23rd and has a sampling error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.
The CNN poll surveyed 1,023 American adults by telephone from March 11th to March 13th, with a sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
The TEA PARTY own by the KOCH'S BROTHER and a FEW OTHER Billionaire. The people that run under the TEA PARTY are about as dumb as they get , Or trying to take Us back to the 19 Century. And nothing they are going to do is get us there. the Tea PARTY is just to far out there. they also want to take away all your right away.
The funniest thing is that their god Reagan, raised taxes 9 times, was the head of a union, a former democrat, and an "elitist" actor.......hilarious, hilarious I tell you. Bachmann, taking "gubmint" handouts for hundreds of thousands in farm subsidies, Palin and her husband wanting to secede from the union to hoard all the oil revenues, Hannity misleading honest donors over his wounded warrior project and Beck making you spend your hard earned SS on gold and food insurance......hopefully that blow-pop stamp on your foreheads rubs off before they fleece you out of your money. I laugh at them all hardily and I feel sorry for the followers who couldn't think for themselves. If you listen to only conservative radio, and then follow up our learning with fox news, then you won't be able to see the line of politicians and entertainers standing behind you waiting their turn.
"The liberals have been giving the Tea Party members the same disgusting treatment they've given to Palin and other conservative women. "
Seriously? You expect people to believe that the Teatrolls didn't instigate the vociferous negative feedback they receive by running around with the signs of Obama in white face or as a voodoo witch doctor and such or by calling him Hitler or Stalin or regurgitating as nauseum the incorrect useage of the words "socialist" and "communist" etc etc etc? These people are consistently proven to be misinformed, logically inept and simply angry, fearful and somewhat bigotted jerks and their ideological talking points and word salad blather are ferquently proven to be devoid of any factual or evidentiary basis. And yet, the "liberal news media" saw fit to jam them down everyone's throats, treat them and their nonsense as inherently legitimate, fail to confront or challenge them with contradictory facts, and sell them to the public as a grassroots uprising while ignoring all the evidence that they're just a bunch of dustdevils stirred up by the Koch brothers', et al, astroturf broom...bussed in to make it look the whoel country is in an uproar and provided training sessions in how to astroturf and take over chat boards with talking points. These are the people who gave us the birthers and concentrated efforts to suppress minority votes in heavily minority communities by ranting about voter fraud and targetting those speecific communities. They're abhorrent and a study in everything that's wrong with our political system as a result of the congenital flaws of the human psyche.
The Tea Party alive and well; liberal media just wants you to think otherwise. Now let's see if they post this comment.
i suspect the tea party will be dumped like a sack of potatoes come Nov 5th 2012.
When I first heard the name TEA Party, I walked into the room and someone was watching what must have been a news story about a small rally of some sort in 2008. I sneezed and didn't hear the name clearly, saw a lot of angry, shouting, weird looking people, and I asked myself, "Wee People?'
You gotta admit, the TEA party crowd dressed up like (your choice goes here) when they first appeared. I thought they were retarded people from a group home out enjoying themselves in the park. I thought I heard "Wee" because I thought it was a reference to being small or short on something. Besides it had a double meaning of "Unity." I was half-right.
@Ken, AZ
To understand what the Tea Party is all about just look at what's happening in Michigan (Martial Law), Wisconsin & Ohio. Is that what less government is suppose to look like?
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Theirs does, for now. Think about it. Most (if not all) of the countries around the world with relatively small governments govern societies that are either poor, oppresed, or both. The power is concentrated in the hands of a select few, and so is the wealth.
The bottom line is that the most important group in this country are non-ideological swing voters, who backed the GOP/TP in the midterms and are having massive buyer's remorse. The problem for the Democrats is that they have not yet given the Independent voters a significant reason to vote for them beyond fear. The Independents want results, not ideology, and if the Dems can continue to offer sane, balanced proposals that address bread and butter issues, they will take back the House, strengthen their hold in the Senate and annihilate the GOP presidential nominee. The Independents won't back Trump as an independent candidate, sicne they want their vote to be for something meaningful. As long as the birthers are out theire, as long as they focus on NPR and not on jobs, as long as they try to turn Medicare into a voucher program, the GOP will go down in flames.
The Democrats and their leftist allies cannot stop the TEa Party in 2012. They will ALL be looking for new jobs come January 2013. 2010 was just the start. The American people have been awakened.
What a surprise! Many Americans don't share the vision fat, rich, old white people have about America. But I think a lot of Tea Party people will change their minds when they see they voted for Medicare cuts that will cost them big bucks when they hit 65
The leaders of this FAKE GRASSROOTS MOVEMENT are exposed for what they really are, CORPORATE SHILLS.
Who wants to be associated with a bunch of paraniod fear mongers who spread lies and gossip.
They would get respect if they just adnit the real truth about themselves. They are a bunch of racist nuts who want to cut government spending, but are on the government roll themselves. They are okay with giving Bachman Agriculture supplements of over 1/2 million dollars. Can they not see that we pay this womans' salary as well as helping to take care of her farm? Such Idiots. I agree that they do not know how government works. I wonder how much they were paid to get out there and shout lies and protest. They had to be paid by someone to show their ignorance. Some Christians. If they really believe in God they would see that his teachings are not what they are following. Such hypocrits.
I think it would be interesting to see a poll asking, do you consider yourself a member of the Democratic Party, the Republican Party, and/or the Tea party. Second question do you have a favorable/unfavorable view of the Democratic Party, the Republican Party, Tea party. Odds are republicans are about 1:1 members/favorable, probably less than that for favorable than members. My guess would be the about same for the Democratic party. The The tea party though is considerably different. My guess is that less than 5% of the population associates itself with the Tea Party, however 33% view it favorably. Just a slightly different way to look at the numbers. If either politcal party had a 6:1 members to favorable rating they would be ecastatic.
How is a movement that was created by corporations and the Koch bros, grass roots? It's a phoney movement designed to dupe the people who don't like any government and rascist into going along.
This is clearly a site where liberals can vent. What else can you expect where CNN is involved. The truth is that Democrats are afraid of the effect of the TP.
Like 4 and 5 day old fish, the odors from the Tea Party or Tea-Publicans are becoming more and more apparant to the public now and people are coming to realize how they are being muniplated by the likes if Freedom Express and the Koch brothers for their cooperate gain.
I think most us knew this trend would die down. The remaining members are basiclly die hard brown people haters. They can mask it all they want, we clearly know what their biggest gripe is, the president of the United States is a black man.
Get over, move on, or just plain move to another country, Mexico? Canada sure won't want them.
No wonder Tparty was driven by anger at the election of a blackman as President.
The Tea Party stands for WHAT is wrong in AMERICA, get rid of them and America is SAVED
The Tea Party stands for WHAT is wrong in AMERICA, get rid of them and America is SAVED
The Tea Party stands for WHAT is wrong in AMERICA, get rid of them and America is SAVED
Tea party projects HATE like the terrorist and all haters out there just as Children of the Devil. GOD IS LOVE and not hate.
The Tea Party was a flatulent farce from the beginning. When will poor, uneducated whites realize that the GOP doesn’t care about them….at all? The Tea Party is against anyone with a minimal 4th grade education because such individuals would be considered to have too much “Book Readin’ Edjamacations”.