Here are the details. Some unsurprising data, but some noteworthy; among other things, tea party supporters are more conservative than the public on social issues, but not vastly so — 40% think Roe v. Wade “was a good thing” (compared to 58% of the public), and their support for allowing same-sex marriage or civil unions is 57%-40% (compared to 63%-30% for the public at large). Support for same-sex marriage as such is considerably lower: 16% as opposed to 39%.
I’ve heard statements that tea party supporters are predominantly male, but the margin is 59%-41%; tea party supporters are thus predominantly male only to pretty much the same extent as college students are predominantly female (57%-43%, 2005 data) — there’s a gender gap, but the movement pretty clearly appeals both to many men and many women. (Bipartisan + sexes instead of parties = bisexual?) They are also somewhat better educated than the public at large (70% with some college or more, as opposed to 53% among the general public). And they are somewhat more prosperous (56% reported incomes of $50,000 and above, as opposed to 44% among the general public) but generally not by much (only 31% reported incomes of $75,000 and above, as opposed to 26% of the general public).
Among the interesting but relatively little-noted substantial differences: The yes-no breakdown as to household gun ownership was 58%-32% for tea party supporters, and 41%-56% for the public at large.
Crunchy Frog says:
The Tea Parties would be a lot more fun if that was the case.
April 15, 2010, 6:32 pmIdahonian says:
Interesting; glad that got out there. I was under the impression (from anecdotal evidence) that the Tea Partiers really weren’t as under-educated, male-dominated, or generally backwards as people assumed that the were…but it’s good to see that someone took an actual interest in the demographic.
April 15, 2010, 6:50 pmgab says:
I don’t know, 3:2 seems pretty predominant to me. That distribution has gotta be at least a couple std. deviations from median.
April 15, 2010, 6:51 pmJoe Kowalski says:
Interesting. The tea party folks seem to think the cornerstone of the health care bill is a good idea.
April 15, 2010, 6:53 pmgab says:
And check out the front page of the online version of today’s LA Times. I’m not sure that 41% number is actually female!
April 15, 2010, 7:07 pmNunzio says:
Joe,
I thought the cornerstone was the individual mandate. Gov’t subsidizing/reinsuring a high risk pool for people with pre-existing conditions who want to buy insurance would be cheaper, and the bill would be a lot shorter than the one that passed.
April 15, 2010, 7:10 pmAnthony says:
No, the individual mandate is not the cornerstone — it’s actually the way the coverage for people with pre-existing conditions is paid for (it’s basically a back-door tax on the healthy). A subsidy/reinsurance scheme for people with pre-existing conditions would be much more expensive.
April 15, 2010, 7:16 pmo says:
The whole thing falls apart if the individual mandate is not there. That sounds like the cornerstone to me.
And I believe a lot of people could agree with coverage of pre-existing conditions if some reasonableness was included with it… Like providing medical coverage to someone, except their pre-existing conditions, until after some time period (1yr?) has passed.
April 15, 2010, 7:20 pmJoe Kowalski says:
Well, if you want guarantee issue and have it be meaningful, you have to have community rating. And if you have community rating not go into a premium death spriral, you need to make sure you have plenty of healthy people buying insurance. Hence the mandate. Most Democrats would have rather done without the mandate as it is arguably the most unpopular part of the bill, and originally Obama argued in the primaries that it wouldn’t be necessary. So I don’t think calling the mandate the cornerstone of the health bill is correct.
Now guaranteeing coverage for people with pre-existing conditions through heavily subsidized high-risk pools is definitely another way, and could possibly be cheaper (I tend to think the same adverse selection problems would make it unaffordable and people would still go uninsured). But that isn’t what the survey asked about.
April 15, 2010, 7:28 pmorca says:
Favorable opinion of the Republican party:
America – 38%
Tea Partiers – 54%
Favorable opinion of the Democratic party:
April 15, 2010, 7:35 pmAmerica – 42%
Tea Partiers – 6%
rjs says:
EV: “Support for same-sex marriage as such is considerably lower: 16$ as opposed to 39%.”
Only $16 for same-sex marriage? Just goes to show you that in America money overcomes all impediments, including legal ones.
[Funny, fix this, thanks! -EV]
April 15, 2010, 7:38 pmAnonymous Coward says:
So if I understand your argument:
1). Guarantee[sic] issue requires the individual mandate.
2). Obama argued in the primaries that the individual mandate wouldn’t be necessary.
Therefore the individual mandate is not the cornerstone of the health bill.
Where ‘cornerstone’ means ‘an important quality or feature on which a particular thing depends or is based.’
April 15, 2010, 7:47 pmJoe Kowalski says:
I see. So perhaps “Cornerstone” was a poor word choice on my part. “Center piece” or “primary feature” or “main goal” perhaps would be better ways to describe the guarantee issue language in the bill. None the less, 58% of the people who identify as being part of the Tea Party movement think guarantee issue is a good idea.
April 15, 2010, 8:02 pmNels says:
Am I missing it, or did this not ask what state the person was from, or whether they lived in a rural, suburban, or urban area? Those seem like important things to know when comparing their answers to the average.
I don’t need a survey to tell me that more surburban and rural Midwesterners own guns than do Manhattanites, if that’s what the differences can be chalked up to.
April 15, 2010, 10:04 pmSarang says:
This is consistent with Jonathan Raban’s NYRB piece from about a month ago. The whole thing is less homogeneous than the MSM likes to make it seem.
April 15, 2010, 10:33 pmshan says:
O,
I believe a lot of people could agree with coverage of pre-existing conditions if some reasonableness was included with it… Like providing medical coverage to someone, except their pre-existing conditions, until after some time period (1yr?) has pass….
What you have stated is the standard pre=existing provision found in standard policies. Are you proposing to put back in what the HRC removed from the insurance policies?
April 15, 2010, 11:31 pmRicardo says:
People with higher incomes tend to be more economically conservative — there’s no surprise there. There is also a large age gap between Tea Partiers and the general public and surveys consistently show people become more conservative as they get older.
April 15, 2010, 11:36 pmEvilDave says:
More accurate to say that as people become more middle class they become more conservative.
April 15, 2010, 11:47 pmDemocrats now represent both the poorest and wealthiest in our society.
Ricardo says:
Support for Democrats increases marginally when income increases to over $200,000. Obama won 52% of the votes of these people compared to 46% for McCain. Moreover, I highly suspect this is due to the fact that people with over $200,000 in income overwhelmingly live in or near big cities and their slight Democratic tendency may be related to this.
As for your middle-class comment, this is problematic. Whites who have a college degree were much more likely to vote for Obama than whites without (47% versus 40%). If you view “middle class” as not purely economic, it seems that the Republican Party now dominates the white working class while the white middle class are swing voters (but with their pronounced tendency to vote Republican as income increases until the $200,000 mark). Naturally, the Democrats have overwhelming numbers of non-white votes.
April 16, 2010, 12:51 amyankee says:
EvilDave–the statistics you cite concern the current composition of the House. Democrats hold 58% of the House, so the Democrats holding House districts with 57% of the nation’s rich voters at most shows that they’ve broken even among the rich, not that they have an advantage among the rich. It doesn’t even show that: if you look at the exit polls House Democrats did worse with $200,000+ voters (48%) than they did with any other income group.
In the Presidential election, Obama did do better with the $200,000+ crowd (52%) than he did with the $150,000-$200,000 crowd (48%), but the 52% he got with the rich merely paralleled his 53% share of the popular vote. The Democratic candidate doing as well with the rich as he did with the public at large was also a very unusual result: the overwhelming trend has been, and remains, that the more money you have, the more likely you are to vote Republican.
Republicans have been trying for decades to paint the Democrats as the party of the rich, and have been very successful in doing so, but that doesn’t make it accurate.
April 16, 2010, 1:00 amyankee says:
I wouldn’t go that far, that result from the 2008 Presidential election was quite unusual. If you look at other races in the same election (though only the large states have enough data for this), the $200,000+ bracket consistently votes Democratic at a lower rate than the public at large. Their votes are similar to the $150,000-200,000 bracket, who also trend Republican relative to the public.
April 16, 2010, 1:13 amBrian K says:
About 90% white, significantly more than the population at large…doesn’t surprise me at all given the tea party rhetoric of late.
April 16, 2010, 1:20 amArthur Kirkland says:
The tea partiers are excited, and enjoying entertainment and camaraderie (reminds me of a Ron Paul rally I attended two years ago, where most people were thrilled when they realized that for one night they were not outcasts). But I see little likelihood they will influence elections (some Republican primaries excepted) substantially. They likely will fold back into the Republican Party, or break off into a splinter or two, none of which should tip elections. They seem, for several reasons, poorly positioned to persuade anyone outside their ranks or in government. And over time the inherent conflicts — libertarians and small-government types chafing against religious nanny-staters — will erode the camaraderie. Which is probably good for Republicans, because the sooner they get back to limited government, competence and reason (contrasted with superstition and bigotry), the quicker the Republicans get their mojo back.
April 16, 2010, 1:27 amleo marvin says:
I smell wires burning from the cognitive dissonance of the dreaded New York Times printing something complimentary about the Tea Partiers.
April 16, 2010, 3:51 amBrett Bellmore says:
To be fair, given the absurdly lopsided percentage of blacks who support the Democratic party like it’s a spinal reflex, (Even going so far as attributing Republican positions to the Democratic party, where they like them better than actual Democratic party positions.) any mass movement that opposes the Democratic party is inevitably going to be disproportionately white, without having to be the least bit racist.
April 16, 2010, 6:27 amnoahp says:
Geez. Only took the NYT/CBS a year to get off their butts and try to find out what the TP is all about. The dems were desparately hoping that their bullshit about them was actually true but alas (croc tears here) they have only succeeded in permanently alienating VOTERS they might have held on to in November.
And where was Obama last night? Hobnobbing with rich and famous @35K/couple! Plus mocked the TP claiming they should thank him for cutting taxes! Tone deaf and still believing the Dem spin. The TP is most concerned about spending! Last year the spin was that TP’ers are sooo stupid that they don’t even know that the original TP was about taxes!
April 16, 2010, 9:11 amscattergood says:
In the battle of polls, I introduce another contender from Gallup: http://www.gallup.com/poll/127181/tea-partiers-fairly-mainstream-demographics.aspx
Politically clearly the Tea Partiers are more conservative, and some of the NYT poll is confirmed about their demographics, and some contradicted.
April 16, 2010, 10:31 amSarcastro says:
Real Presidents live like noble hermits far up on Mount Washington! Only the most badass of regulators are able to make the climb to receive the wisdom of an Executive Order.
Also, not sure TP is much of an improvement over Teabagger, especially in the phrase “get off their butts and try to find out what the TP is all about.” Just saying.
April 16, 2010, 10:45 amElliot says:
And just a year ago Obama told us he didn’t know anything about Tea Parties.
April 16, 2010, 11:42 amBK says:
So I guess popular opinion equates “Tea Party” with “White Trash,” so guess what – surprise America! The people who Tea Party might actually make more money and have more formal education than you.
Who cares? We all get a vote in America, and when it comes to electing our representatives, the majority (usually) wins. So even if the majority is poor, dumb, illiterate, and full of Wal-Mart shoppers, their opinion can still carry the day.
April 16, 2010, 8:34 pmMean Mister Mustard says:
As someone who does quantitative research for a living and has has more than passing experience with tea party and red state types, I find the reaction to this piece of ‘research’ to be ridiculous.
Issues:
1. Politics is always about fights within relative elites. Peasant revolution is a myth. Just remember than when you say a group of people is ‘above average’ in this country, you put them in with 150 million other people. That 150 million ‘below average’ group is largely a non-issue in much of politics, or at least a fairly small issue.
2.”More education” just means more years of schooling, nothing more. Since the quality of educational institutions varies so much, I can’t see how a year or two of more education “on average” really means anything beyond “was enrolled, somewhere or other”. I’d surmise that teacher quality in remote (not many Tea Partiers from costal cities) areas is lower. I’d also state that many of them attended highly idealogical institutions, e.g. Bob Jones University and other bible colleges, that offer indoctrination as much as education.
3. The income question is useless. If you take point 1, that better off people are more politically active, at all seriously, this is obvious. What’s more, I would seriously expect that a huge number of people on the right who’s incomes are largely the product and overly generous government policies are going to be especially animated by their political opposition.
While the stereotypes of Tea Partiers might be a tad mean, there is some truth to them. In the main, this is a group of isolated people. While they might not live in a trailer and do meth (i.e. they aren’t ‘white trash’ in the narrowest sense), they are from the same communities and parts of the country where those peoples’ numbers are largest. Understanding their isolation is what the pollsters should be doing, not obscuring the Tea Partiers origins with shabby surveys.
April 22, 2010, 4:57 pm