Support For The Tea Party Drops, Taking The Republican Party Down As Well
As predicted here in the wake of its 2010 mid-term election gains, support for the Tea Party is falling precipitously and it is dragging down the Republican Party with it only a few weeks before campaigning for the 2012 elections begin in earnest.
A Pew Research Center analysis found that the decline is occurring in places not long ago considered Tea Party bastions, while support for the Republican Party has fallen even further as the number of people who disagree with the Tea Party’s goals, embraced by many Republican politicians, has risen significantly.
The analysis of several polls found that people who disagree with the Tea Party has risen to 27 percent among the general public, while 20 percent said they agreed, a reversal from a year ago following the mid-term elections.
In Tea Party districts, 23 percent of people now disagree with the Tea Party, while 25 percent agree. A year ago, 18 percent of people in those districts disagreed with the Tea Party, and 33 percent agreed.
In another poll in the Pew analysis, 48 percent of people in Tea Party districts said they had a negative view of the Republican Party, while 41 percent said they had a favorable view. The favorable rating had dropped 14 percentage points since March.
Opinions about the Democratic Party have shifted less, nationally, according to the analysis, although among the general public favorable ratings for the Democratic Party fell to 46 percent in October from 50 percent in August. In Tea Party districts, favorable ratings for the Democrats stayed about the same — at 39 percent in October and 37 percent in August.
The analysis did not include specific reasons for the decline in support for the Tea Party and GOP, but it did not take great prescience for me to write the morning after the election that the Republican takeover of the House was largely undeserved, which is to say that the very establishment Republicans who enabled George Bush’s failed agenda would still be running the GOP show. And what a bunch of smacked asses they have turned out to be as they twice tried to shut down the government and refused to agree to any of the compromises during negotiations by the debt reduction supercommittee. It is no surprise that the standing of the GOP has fallen after each of these fiascoes.
Then there is the Tea Party itself. The movement is chockablock with contradictions save for one — its members’ sense of grievance and self pity. Indeed, the party is proving itself to be a one- or perhaps two-election cycle wonder.
14 Responses to “Support For The Tea Party Drops, Taking The Republican Party Down As Well”
Shaun I wonder if two things will continue to ultimately drive partisan bickering, no matter how they are framed on cable network media:
1) health care costs for families, despite the “affordable care” act and mandatory purchase of health insurance, and
2) the massive distribution of wealth and income in this country and how it interferes with representative democracy, a viable economy, and a sense of fairness among Americans (not just “other people’s money”.)
But most of all I wonder if the general electorate really cares, or has the attention span to wonder?
Watching the YouTube videos of Wal-Mart Black Friday, I think we’re screwed.
JeffP:
Good questions, and the two are inextricably linked.
While the Occupy Wall Street protests are winding down, they have helped galvanize the sense of economic injustice many of us feel and secondary further cast the health-care reform hating and sycophantic rich and Wall Street loving Republican Party in an extremely negative light.
None of this is likely to reduce partisan bickering (and the Democrats do their share), but perhaps — just perhaps — the drubbing of some Republicans next November will be a long overdue wake-up call. A defeat of the top of the ticket in an election that was the GOP’s to lose would perhaps — just perhaps — enable what is left of the party mainstream to wrest control from the kooks.
The tend I see in those numbers, is a simple continuing decline in faith in the mainstream parties.
I find that encouraging.
“While the Occupy Wall Street protests are winding down, they have helped galvanize the sense of economic injustice many of us feel and secondary further cast the health-care reform hating and sycophantic rich and Wall Street loving Republican Party in an extremely negative light.”
Rather than galvanize, I would say they have rusted out at this point; no Energizer Bunny to rewind them.
This may also be true of the TPer, only less so.
“But most of all I wonder if the general electorate really cares, or has the attention span to wonder?” – JeffP
Nothing concentrates the attention like pain, and therein lies the difference between the OWS and the TP. The former is a movement of necessity, the latter one of choice.
They both were a pain.
So little time, so much misanthropy.
Well I think a year of the antics of those voted in by the TP movement has shown a lot of people how short sighted and just plain wrongheaded a lot of their ideas are. Its a trend I hope will continue thru the next election.
The Republican Party made the same mistake in 2010 that the Democratic Party made in 2006 and 2008. They believed that their people were elected because of their platforms. The voters did not send either party into Washington to follow (exclusively) their platforms. They voted for them because they wanted to vote OUT the incumbent party.
If a Republican takes the WH, it will be because the voters want something to happen other than what has occurred during the previous four years. If the Republicans gain control of the Senate and (by some miracle) keep control of the House, the dumbest thing they could do is assume that the ‘electorate has spoken’ and try to jam all of their ideas through. That will lose them the House and Senate in 2014 for certain.
Meanwhile, if the Dems think they have a mandate by getting the House back and keeping the Senate and WH, thew will be making the same, stupid mistake. The voters are not sending either party in with a mandate. They are sending new people in; hoping beyond hope that they will somehow, in some way manage to change the idiocy in Washington.
And yet, Rcoutme, I can virtually guarantee you that if that were to happen the Republicans would take it as a mandate for the most extreme positions they hold, especially if they managed it with an anti-Romney candidate.
Alas, yes. I expect either party to claim a mandate if they get 0.1% more support than the other.
Well said, RC………..
I like to point out the math in elections. Here in PA it is estimated that in 2010, 60% of the voters registered to vote stayed home. That meant 40% of those who could vote, actually made it to the polls. Voter turnout this past election was even worse.
Since most of the 2010 races were hotly contested, many were won by only a couple of percentage points, 51% vs 49% and the like. But that doesn’t mean 51% of the voting populace put the winner in office. It means 51% of the 40% who actually bothered to vote put them in office, which equals about 21% to 22% of the voting populace.
So these bozos can only say that 21 to 22% of the voters actually voted them into office while the remaining 78%-79% either didn’t vote for them or didn’t vote at all. Sad really, and no call for any “mandate” from anyone.
It really shines a light on a huge problem with our elections. It’s bigger than any voter fraud or election fraud bru-ha-ha that gets slung around every election cycle. Voter apathy. More people vote for American Idol than for our representatives. How can we have a government that reflects the will of the people when the people themselves won’t vote?
If we are angry – and there is a lot to be angry about on both sides of the argument – we must begin by looking in the mirror and acknowledging that the biggest problem with US elections is the voters themselves.
There’s always the Australian approach. Is there anything in the Constitution that would forbid it?