NYT/CBS Poll: Tea Party favorability surges since government shutdown
The polling data missing from the headlines and a return to normal.
At this point, I’m used to support for the Tea Party being mischaracterized in news coverage of polling.
The negative always is the focus, and actual analysis of the persistency of support hovering between 1-in-4 and 1-in-5 Americans is ignored:
- Congrats @Gallup for inspiring these 5 misleading anti-Tea Party headlines
- Hidden gem in ABC/WaPo Poll: Strong Tea Party support
- CBS News buries poll result showing Tea Party support rising
With the release of the latest New York Times/CBS News poll, the strength of the Tea Party has been ignored in favor of focus on rifts in the Republican Party and the generic congressional ballot looking better for Republicans. Those other topics are important and worthy of coverage, but why isn’t the surge in Tea Party favorability since the partial government “shutdown” getting coverage?
Wait, what?! Favorability of the Tea Party has surged since the partial shut down of some of the government? Isn’t the narrative supposed to be that the Tea Party is toast?
Here are the internals for the NYT/CBS poll.
Favorability has risen from 14% in late October to 21% currently! Surge! Unfavorability has dropped by 5% too. Overall favorability actually has returned to its historical norm, but that in itself is a story.
An overwhelming majority do not have an unfavorable view of the Tea Party, with almost half undecided or not having heard enough. Most of the unfavorability comes from Democrats:
You could slice and dice this into great headlines reflecting well on the Tea Party in America. But you won’t see those headlines.
Why the surge in favorablity and decline in unfavorability? Perhaps it’s because the massive media attack on the Tea Party after the “shutdown” was overblown, and the Tea Party was proven correct on so many things, particularly Obamacare.
As to whether the Tea Party has too much influence, the numbers also are postive although not dramatic:
In late October 40% felt the Tea Party had too much influence, that has dropped to 37%. Combining those who feel the Tea Party does not have enough influence or has the right amount, the number has gone from 48% to 45%, largely due to the 6% increase in those who answered Don’t Know or did not answer. There’s no surge either way here, but a steady reflection that a strong majority of those who answered (45%-37% of total) do not feel that the Tea Party has too much influence.
Those who consider themselves supporters of Tea Party is essentially unchanged. While a majority are not supporters, the favorabilty ratings demonstrate that lack of “support” does not equate to an unfavorable view:
So despite unprecedented attacks on the Tea Party from the media and the Republican leadership, support for the Tea Party remains steady, and favorability has rebounded dramatically since October.
Does. Not. Fit. The. Narrative.
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Comments
You can tie up 501(c)4s, you can boycott investments, you can oppo-kill individuals, etc., but you can’t kill an idea. Not even bastardized TP orgs can do it.
Like I keep harping, we/they ought to think of the TP as a shared set of iviolate principles, not as a set of organizations. Only smaller, less intrusive, Constitution compliant government will cool the demand for smaller, less intrusive, Constitution compliant government.
Headline from this data that you’ll never see in the MSM: Support for Tea Party Up 50%!
I don’t see any MOE or sample information in the first or last few pages. What is supplied is breakdowns on individual questions, which I think would be the “crosstabs.”
Unless the MOE is under 3.5%, which is doubtful anyway for “issues opinion” polls where literally everything depends on the wording of the questions, all the differences mentioned are within the +/-.
So statistically it is incorrect to say there is any “trend” at all.
Hearing footsteps, eh?
The MOE for which survey? Assuming the MOE is a constant for each of the surveys cited, there is a trend.
Fact is, the population may be distracted and easily influenced by the Democrat-Controlled Media with it’s nakedly obvious partisan agenda but no one can spin Obamacare into a positive.
If the Employer Mandate were a good thing, think Obama would have delayed it until after he is out of office?
Sorry Charlie, Obamacare sucks and the Tea Party warned the population. Stuff Happens
“Why the surge in favorablity and decline in unfavorability? Perhaps it’s because the massive media attack on the Tea Party after the “shutdown” was overblown, and the Tea Party was proven correct on so many things, particularly Obamacare.”
well, we don’t know, or I don’t know, what the previous questions were, but when a question is asked about what kind of a “job” a president is “doing” (present tense) this is always related to the most recent events, except when it is near an election, in wich case it may reflect an overall overview.
The decline and then reversion to the mean for the Tea Party would seem to mean that a lot of people did not support the Congressional tactics attributed to the Tea Party. Now the answer reflects other issues, and may reflect also that the idea of letting the debt ceiling be reached, or budgetary athority for the federal government coming to an end, is no longer a live issue.
Still, only about 20-25% of the public consider themselves suppporters of the Tea Party and 2/3 are against. It’s unpopular.
lol, and TP-ers hope y’all keep on thinking that way.
Wonder how the polling would read if Tea Party beliefs were polled, and the name Tea Party was not revealed. Then we would see some very big gains, many have been brainwashed by the MSM.
^^this^^
“Then we would see some very big gains, many have been brainwashed by the MSM” – and GOP leadership. FIFY.
maybe I am reading that first one wrong but it looks to me like 2-19 to 2-23 2014 is 31 UNfavorable and 21 favorable. this also seems to be pretty close to historical except for the 36 UNfavorable on Oct 2013.
I’m not seeing a surge either way, what am I missing?
I take the “haven’t heard enough” and “undecided” as favorable to the TP. At least they are not convinced the TP is a terrorist organization. Anyone who despises the TP, as the MSM wants us to do, would not hesitate to say so and would not choose these responses. I think there is a lot of underlying support for the TP. Like so many other things in our society, people don’t want to admit it for fear of being “labeled”.
Pretty simple to me. Government was shut down because Tea Party Republicans wanted to delay ObamaCare mandates, etc. The Dems refused to even consider such. Then, President Obama delayed some portions of the law, without apparent legal authority, the ObamaCare rollout bombed, and more portions of the law were delayed by the Administration, again without apparent legal authority. The Republicans were trying to do legally, what Obama and Dems ended up doing illegally.
The further we get, in time, from the shutdown, the more, I expect, that the public will see the Tea Party Republicans as prescient in regards to how bad ObamaCare really was going to be.
When you consider the consistently negative media coverage the Tea Party has received, it’s amazing that they have any approval at all.
Well, that can’t be right.
The NYT, CNN and MSNBC make it clear on a daily basis that everybody despises us.
I mean them, them!
“You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.” Winston Churchill
I think the apathy party would pull a consistent 55% in the US. A country that loses its will to live, won’t.
Favorability of the Tea Party has surged since the partial shut down of some of the government? Isn’t the narrative supposed to be that the Tea Party is toast?
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ok I am obviously overlooking something as I am not seeing it in those graphs.
can someone please point it out to me?
sorry and thank you.