Who are these Tea Party people?

A new poll is out that sheds some light on who are the Tea Party people and what issues matter to them. The poll is by the Winston Group which is a conservative think tank run by David Wilson a former advsior to Republicans and Director of Planning for Newt when he was Speaker. You should take that into account when considering these numbers. Also, I haven’t seen the survey questions so don’t know if they were biased or not. That said, here are some of the results.

17% of the registered voters surveyed in December 2009 and February 2010 said the were “part of the Tea Party movement.”

Not surprising, Tea Partiers are primarily Republicans (57%) but also include Independents (28%) and a few Democrats (13%).

Almost 2/3rds are self-identified Conservatives and another 26% say they are moderates.

The are mostly male and over 55. 70% are over 45.

Most get their news from Fox (47%) as their primary source or CNN (14%)

54% report incomes over $50,00 per year (vs 51% of all voters) with 32% reporting incomes over $75,000 (vs. 34% of all voters.)

Tea Partiers’ top issues are the economy/jobs (36%) and national deficit/spending (21%). Compared to voters overall in the study Tea Partiers are less concerned with the economy/jobs that voters as a whole (36% vs 45%) and more concerned with national deficit/spending (21% vs 10%).

83% of Tea Partiers say increased taxes will cause job losses vs. 53% of all voters.

87% say the stimuls is not working vs. 54% of all voters.

Interestingly when given the choice of balancing the budge or reducing unemployment to 5%, Tea Partiers are for reducing unemployment (63%) which is about the same as for all voters. That final finding suggests that a lot of the Tea Party anger comes from the job loses and high unemployment.

So, when the job picture improves as it seems to be doing will the Tea Party movement fall apart? Once the Tea Partiers and their family members get back to work will they remain as angry with the mean old government as they have been or will things look brighter, Obama and the government not look so bad, and Glenn Beck start looking to them like some loony tunes nut case, which of course he is? We’ll see.

See the Tea Party poll at: http://winstongroup.net/2010/04/01/behind-the-headlines-whats-driving-the-tea-party-movement/