Membership and demographics
Several polls have been conducted on the demographics of the movement. Though the various polls sometimes turn up slightly different results, they tend to show that Tea Party supporters tend more likely than Americans overall to be white, male, married, older than 45, regularly attending religious services, conservative, and to be more wealthy and have more education.[128][129][130][131][132]
According to The Atlantic, the three main groups that provide guidance and organization for the protests, FreedomWorks, dontGO, and Americans for Prosperity, state that the demonstrations are an organic movement.[133] Law professor and commentator Glenn Reynolds, best known as author of the Instapundit political blog, argued in the New York Post that: “These aren’t the usual semiprofessional protesters who attend antiwar and pro-union marches. These are people with real jobs; most have never attended a protest march before. They represent a kind of energy that our politics hasn’t seen lately, and an influx of new activists.”[134] Conservative political strategist Tim Phillips, now head of Americans for Prosperity, has remarked that the Republican Party is “too disorganized and unsure of itself to pull this off”.[135]
The Christian Science Monitor has noted that Tea Party activists “have been called neo-Klansmen and knuckle-dragging hillbillies”, adding that “demonizing tea party activists tends to energize the Democrats’ left-of-center base” and that “polls suggest that tea party activists are not only more mainstream than many critics suggest,”[136] but that a majority of them are women, not angry white men.[136][137][138] The article quoted Juan Williams as saying that the Tea Party’s opposition to health reform was based on self-interest rather than racism.[136]
A Gallup poll conducted in March 2010 found that—other than gender, income and politics—self-described Tea Party members were demographically similar to the population as a whole.[139]
When surveying supporters or participants of the Tea Party movement, polls have shown that they are to a very great extent more likely to be registered Republican, have a favorable opinion of the Republican Party and an unfavorable opinion of the Democratic Party.[132][140][141] The Bloomberg National Poll of adults 18 and over showed that 40% of Tea Party supporters are 55 or older, compared with 32% of all poll respondents; 79% are white, 61% are men and 44% identify as “born-again Christians”,[142] compared with 75%,[143] 48.5%,[144] and 34%[145] for the general population, respectively.
According to Susan Page and Naomi Jagoda of USA Today in 2010, the Tea Party was more “a frustrated state of mind” than “a classic political movement”.[146] Tea party members “are more likely to be married and a bit older than the nation as a whole”.[146] They are predominantly white, but other groups make up just under one-fourth of their ranks.[146] They believe that the federal government has become too large and powerful.[146]
Polling of supporters
An October 2010 Washington Post canvass of local Tea Party organizers found 99% said “concern about the economy” was an “important factor”.[62] Various polls have also probed Tea Party supporters for their views on a variety of political and controversial issues. On the question of whether they think their own income taxes this year are fair, 52% of Tea Party supporters told pollsters for CBS/New York Times that they were, versus 62% in the general population (including Tea Party supporters).[140] A Bloomberg News poll found that Tea Partiers are not against increased government action in all cases. “The ideas that find nearly universal agreement among Tea Party supporters are rather vague,” says J. Ann Selzer, the pollster who created the survey. “You would think any idea that involves more government action would be anathema, and that is just not the case.”
In advance of a new edition of their book American Grace, political scientists David E. Campbell of Notre Dame and Robert D. Putnam of Harvard published in a The New York Times opinion the results of their research into the political attitudes and background of Tea Party supporters. Using a pre-Tea Party poll in 2006 and going back to the same respondents in 2011, they found the supporters to be not “nonpartisan political neophytes” as often described, but largely “overwhelmingly partisan Republicans” who were politically active prior to the Tea Party. The survey found Tea Party supporters “no more likely than anyone else” to have suffered hardship during the 2007–2010 recession. Additionally, the respondents were more concerned about “putting God in government” than with trying to shrink government.[147][148]
The 2010 midterm elections demonstrated considerable skepticism within the Tea Party movement with respect to the dangers and the reality of global warming. A New York Times/CBS News Poll during the election revealed that only a small percentage of Tea Party supporters considered global warming a serious problem, much less than the portion of the general public that does. The Tea Party is strongly opposed to government-imposed limits on carbon dioxide emissions as part of emissions trading legislation to encourage use of fuels that emit less carbon dioxide.[149] An example is the movement’s support of California Proposition 23, which would suspend AB32, the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006.[150] The proposition failed to pass, with less than 40% voting in favor.[151]
Many[quantify] of the movement’s members also favor stricter measures against illegal immigration.[152]
Polls found that just 7% of Tea Party supporters approve of how Obama is doing his job compared to 50% (as of April 2010) of the general public,[140][needs update] and that roughly 77% of supporters had voted for Obama’s Republican opponent, John McCain in 2008.[131][132]
A University of Washington poll of 1,695 registered voters in the state of Washington reported that 73% of Tea Party supporters disapprove of Obama’s policy of engaging with Muslim countries, 88% approve of the controversial Arizona immigration law enacted in 2010 that requires police to question people they suspect are illegal immigrants for proof of legal status, 54% feel that immigration is changing the culture in the U.S. for the worse, 82% do not believe that gay and lesbian couples should have the legal right to marry, and that about 52% believe that “[c]ompared to the size of the group, lesbians and gays have too much political power”.[153][154][155]