Opposition to Tea Party drops to near-record low
More people support the Tea Party than consider themselves liberal, and almost 3/4 of the electorate does not oppose the Tea Party.
That’s not the headline you will see, of course.
Instead, Gallup headlines its story about its most recent polling to emphasize the negative about Tea Party support, Tea Party Support Dwindles to Near-Record Low.
But it you look at Gallups chart, it shows a 2% drop in support for the Tea Party in the past year and a 2% drop in opposition to the Tea Party, and both are near record lows.
There’s only one brief time period when opposition to the Tea Party was significantly lower, but opposition now is right in the 25-29% range it’s typically been in.
Tea Party support is significantly lower than three years ago, but about where it was two years ago. So the drop took place two years ago, not recently as the Gallup headline (picked up in the mainstream media) would have you believe.
Why highlight just the drop in support? Because.
Moreover, the percentage of people who consider themselves Tea Pary supporters is slightly larger than those who consider themselves liberal, as measured in Gallup’s ideological self-identification survey from 2012.
Considering the multi-year war on the Tea Party by Democrats, many Republicans, and the media, it is astounding that the Tea Party continues to stay more or less even in its support over the past two years. A 2% drop is hardly meaningful, and could just be variations within the margin of error in the poll, which was +/- 3%.
Also consider that half the electorate has no opinion one way or the other. So put it another way, almost 3/4 of the American electorate is not opposed to the Tea Party!
Think about it another way, if you were at a dinner table with four other people who represented the American electorate, one of the people at the table would be a Tea Party supporter. And two others would have no opinion.
Be afraid, be very afraid.
Update: If Gallup wanted to be completely neutral, it could have written its headline as “Support and Opposition to Tea Party Stable.” Instead, Gallup’s anti-Tea Party spin is being picked up gladly at outlets such as TPM:
This is possibly the dumbest headline of all, from Taylor Marsh:
Right, no one supports Tea Party, other than over 1 in 5 Americans.
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Comments
If the drop is within the margin of error, it is not significant.
Just to let you know: the group “TEA Party supporter” is not, and never has been, limited to capital “C” Conservatives, or Republicans. The Democratic Party at the national level has done their damndest to make that accusation stick, mainly because they are afraid of being replaced, a fear they share with the Republican Party at the national level.
The TEA Party platform was designed to span the American political spectrum.
Once the MSM manufactures a couple more stories along the Teapartiers = NAZIS vein – the numbers will go back up.
Ouote:
“Think about it another way, if you were at a dinner table with four other people who represented the American electorate, one of the people at the table would be a Tea Party supporter. And two others would have no opinion.”
Add:
“One would claim he/she was only there because they were being held hostage. Add the one who is there because someone said “Free Meal” and you pretty much have the whole gang.”
‘Bon Appetit’ and make sure you pick up the check.
I was told there was going to be a raffle.
See…???
To know us is to love us. Really. We’re not horned devils, and people don’t like being lied to. So, we just need to get out and let people know us, and our ACTUAL ideas.
There is a difference between not having an opinion and not being willing to share an opinion. How many people have merely decided to clam up because the left have made the cost of expressing anything other than full throated support for their agenda very high?
“How many people have merely decided to clam up because the left have made the cost of expressing anything other than full throated support for their agenda very high?”
It’s precisely why we shouldn’t clam up. If we do, we’re done. But we also have those, supposedly, on our side to deal with too.
I am not dwindling. And, the tea is steeping longer, getting stronger.
[…] Also, related: opposition to the Tea Party is at a record low: […]
You are going to get Angry Bird McCain all hot and bothered!
I still say that based on this Breitbart report from February 2010, Bill Clinton and James Carville were instrumental in orchestrating the full on assault on the Tea Party. They understood better than most that they had to turn public opinion against it because it represented a serious threat to big government progressivism.
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2010/02/17/Clinton-Plotting-Tea-Party-Counterattack
Much of the anti-Tea Party vitriol came from the Center for American Progress and Think Progress. That’s important because they were overseen by John Podesta, Bill Clinton’s one time chief of staff and confidant. Oh yeah, and Hillary Clinton also took credit for helping found both CAP and Media Matters when she addressed the 2007 Daily Kos kook conference (start listening at 2:20 mark to hear her take credit).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbzC6-N9mwM
I love the headline “Poll: Tea party support shrinks to ‘near record low.'” Coupled with the picture that states “Don’t believe the liberal media lies.”
Classic oversight by the ignoramuses in the media, or even if were deliberate as in “We’re too arrogant to believe we couldn’t be wrong and we’ll brazenly show it with this picture” it’s still pretty easy to see the bias.
Whenever I see this or anything saying how much support such and such group has I remember this:
Only 10% of the colonists supported the revolution and the formation of the United States.
The American experiment is fragile.
[…] legalinsurrection.com […]
Taylor Marsh and dumb comments are extremely well acquainted. Some would call them running buddies.
Tea Party is Honey Badger and Honey Badger don’t care. Honey Badger don’t give a shit who or how many may support it. It’s a coalition of regular Americans who share a traditional set of values and math skills. Due to a leftward galloping GOP and an aggressively controlling liberal Democrat administration we are reduced to fighting not for lofty ideals, but for our most basic principles and rights, and he who fights for his family, home, and freedom fights harder than he who fights merely for money or power (Art Of War).
Honey Badger ain’t gonna change because of poll numbers. Honey Badger don’t give a shit.
[…] via Gallup | Tea Party Support | Opposition | near-record. […]
[…] Despite four years of demonization, the public largely doesn’t see the Tea Party as demons: […]
I’ll invest my reputation as a political prophet by initiating coverage of TP with a strong-buy recommendation to outperform, with a target of a 52-week high come November 2014.
Opposition isn’t “near record low” it was at 21% and 22% (even shown in the chart) and at 26% multiple times
[…] People identify more with the Tea Party than do liberalism. America remains a center-right nation one that is comfortable with more restrictions on abortion and fewer on guns than those within the Beltway think. Either Ted Cruz and Rand Paul are the future of the Republican Party or the party has no future. The sooner the GOP leadership wakes up to this fact, the better. In the meantime I will send my dollars directly to Rand Paul and Ted Cruz or any other candidate that reflects my opinions and concerns. The RNC and the rest of the party can go to hell. […]
I read this poll earlier today and I think your take on it just as misleading as any take you are complaining about. One this is for sure,the number of people who strongly support the Tea Party is way down and the number of people who just do not give a damn is up. In 2010 I was a supporter of the movement, not so much now. I have been put off by some of the back stabbing and in fighting.
That back stabbing and in fighting you mention…that’s from the established politicos of both “major” parties. You know, the ones that fear the Tea Party and its supporters.
[…] though, Legal Insurrection makes a good point. It’s not only support that’s dipped. Opposition has dipped too, by […]
[…] Gallup published a new poll today with the headline Tea Party Support Dwindles to Near-Record Low. What they failed to mention is that opposition to the Tea Party has also dropped to a near-record low. […]
They told me there wasn’t going to be any math on this test! How do you expect me to know what’s going on if you confuse me with numbers? Is 2%, like, important?
If you hate the TEA Party, it isn’t because of numbers. If you support the TEA Party, it is because of numbers like 16 Trillion (that’s “trillion” with a “T”) United States dollars of national debt. That number is so big nobody can understand it, so, again, numbers don’t count.