A pair of polls show Americans are largely unhappy with both the GOP and the tea party wing of the party.
Tea party favorability has fallen to an all-time low according a Gallup poll released Wednesday, which found a slight majority (51%) of Americans have an unfavorable view of the tea party. The poll finds 30% of Americans feel positively about the tea party, down from a high of 39% in 2011. Republicans are most likely to support the movement, with 58% seeing it favorably, and unsurprisingly Democrats overwhelmingly dislike the tea party — 74% to 10%.
Moderates aren’t too keen on the movement either. While the split is not as stark as with Democrats, moderates are more likely than even the general public to say they don’t favor the tea party (54%) and only 23% say they do favor it.
It turns out moderates tend to prefer the Democratic Party to the Republican Party as well. A second Gallup poll released Wednesday finds Democrats maintain a 10-point lead over Republicans in terms of favorability with the American public. While moderates are currently evenly split on the Democratic Party, with 47% viewing it positively and another 47% viewing it negatively, only 27% of moderates have positive views of the Republican Party right now.
Even the Republican base is not as strong as it is for the Democrats. Self-described liberals favor the Democratic Party 71% to 25% in the poll, but conservatives just barely break in favor of the GOP. Just 47% of conservatives say they favor the Republican Party compared to 46% who don’t.
As Gallup’s Andrew Dugan wrote in his analysis, “Neither party closes out the year with a positive public image, but Republicans have had a worse year in terms of overall favorability. The damage wrought by the federal government shutdown has not dissipated much for the GOP.”
Morgan Whitaker