Favorable Views of Tea Party Up 14 Points Since January
Friday, May 24, 2013
Favorables for the Tea Party have jumped since news broke that the Internal Revenue Service was targeting the grassroots movement and other conservative groups.
A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that 44% of Likely U.S. Voters now have a favorable opinion of the Tea Party. That's up 14 points from Januarybut still down from April 2009's high of 51% when the Tea Party protests against President Obama’s spending policies first erupted.
Forty-four percent (44%) also now view the Tea Party unfavorably, although that's down five points from earlier this year. The latest findings include 18% with a Very Favorable opinion of the movement and 25% with a Very Unfavorable one. Thirteen percent (13%) are undecided. (To see survey question wording, click here.)
The survey of 1,000 Likely Voters was conducted on May 21-22, 2013 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology.