[lbo-talk] Demographic composition of the Tea Party

[Sean Andrews]

On Tue, Apr 6, 2010 at 08:45, brad bauerly <bbauerly at gmail.com> wrote:
>>My guess is that in this poll, "TP support" for many respondents is
>>actually just a contentless token of Republican Party loyalty. They know
>>there's "something Republican" about the TP, and that they're
>>Republicans, so when pressured to call themselves supporters or
>>opponents they call themselves supporters.
>>SA

This seems to have another read of the gallup poll (via dissenting justice):

http://theplumline.whorunsgov.com/republican-party/tea-party-movement-is-politically-mainstream-not-so-much/

The new Gallup poll illustrates this even more starkly. The 28% of
Americans who identify themselves as Tea Party supporters break down
this way:

* Forty-nine percent of Tea Party supporters are Republicans, 43% are
independents, and only eight percent are Dems. That means a huge
majority — 92% — are Republicans or indys, and again, many of those
indys could be former Republicans or lean GOP anyway.

* Seventy percent of Tea Party supporters say they’re conservative,
and only 22% say they’re moderate. And who knows what they even mean
by that word to begin with.

* A whopping 79% of Tea Party supporters are non-hispanic whites. Only
65% of Americans were non-hispanic whites as of 2008.

* Fifty-five percent of Tea Party supporters make over $50,000 a year.

It’s true that Gallup does conclude that the Tea Party movement is
mainstream — in terms of some demographics. That’s already led to some
crowing on the right. But in political terms, the simple facts are
unescapable: The Tea Party movement is relatively well off, tilts
Republican, and is overwhelmingly white and conservative.