Today Gallup released their own look at the Tea Party movement with a slight difference. The Winston Poll surveyed people who said they were part of the Tea Party movement, this Gallup Poll identifies people who say they support the Tea Party movement. One can assume that these audiences are very similar as the Tea Party base is 27% US in Winston and 28% in Gallup.
Gallup reports that Tea Party supporters skew right politically; but come from all political parties and demographically, they are generally representative of the public at large.
Gallup is reporting that more than half of Tea Party supporters are NOT Republican, but they tend to be much more conservative than the general population. Also, compared with average Americans, supporters are slightly more male and less likely to be lower-income. Keep in mind, that the $50,000 bracket shown as the highest income bracket below is actually the average US Household income, so it cannot be discerned whether these people are upscale, or around average.
In several other respects, however -- their age, educational background, employment status, and race (yes RACE) , Tea Partiers are quite representative of the public at large. This is slightly different than the Winston poll which projected that the typical Tea Party member was older than the general public.
Over the past year, Tea Party movement activists -- originally kindled by grass-roots opposition to the economic stimulus bill and taxpayer bailouts of homeowners -- came out strongly against the Democrats' national healthcare reform plans. That stance is evident in the latest USA Today/Gallup poll, in which 87% of Tea Party supporters -- versus 50% of all Americans -- say they consider passage of healthcare reform a bad thing.
While opposition to the healthcare bill is perhaps the most distinctive characteristic of Tea Party supporters in the new poll, their views on abortion are also notable. Nearly two-thirds consider themselves "pro-life" on the abortion issue, compared with 46% of all national adults.
Surprisingly, Gallup did not ask any questions about the Tea Party opinions on the Economy which is the reason for the birth of the movement. But their look at the demographics of the Tea Party movement, while not surprising, is refreshing. I am sure that if both the Gallup and Winston Polls are read by anyone at MSNBC their heads will explode.
To read the entire Gallup Study Click HERE
FYI: Right Wing News has just released an interview With Tim Burns, The Man Running For “John Murtha’s Seat” On May 18, 2010. You can read it all here Now, you may be thinking: Why should I care about this? Two reasons. #1) This race happens NEXT MONTH. So, it's going to be big. #2) After Scott Brown took "Ted Kennedy's seat," can you imagine how much the Left would hate it if we followed that up by taking "John Murtha's seat?"
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