Raleigh, N.C. – As politicians and the media debate the impact and possible longevity of the Tea Party, a new SurveyUSA poll released today by the Civitas Institute shows the Tea Party has the backing of 43 percent of North Carolina voters.
According to the poll of 500 registered North Carolina voters, 43 percent said they support the Tea Party movement. Thirty-eight percent said they oppose it, and 19 percent said they are not sure.
Support for the Tea Party is highest among Republican voters (76 percent), with unaffiliated voters almost equally split in a 42 percent to 41 percent margin. A majority of Democratic voters oppose the Tea Party movement by 60 percent to 19 percent.
“Despite media reports to the contrary, the numbers here show there is still strong support for the Tea Party movement in North Carolina,” said Civitas Institute President Francis De Luca. “Politicians who ignore the Tea Party members and their principles of limited government and fiscal responsibility do so at their own peril.”
Regionally, 54 percent of voters in Greensboro said they support the Tea Party movement, along with 45 percent of Charlotte voters and 36 percent of voters in Raleigh. Support among voters in the Southern and coastal regions of the state are split in their opinion (44 percent oppose – 43 percent support).
For questions asked and full results and crosstabs from the poll, click here.
The survey of 500 registered voters was taken April 14 by SurveyUSA on behalf of the Civitas Institute using the Interactive Voice Response (IVR) method. It carries a margin of error of +/- 4.5%.
This SurveyUSA poll was conducted by telephone in the voice of a professional announcer. Respondent households were selected at random, using Random Digit Dialed (RDD) sample provided by Survey Sampling, of Fairfield CT. All respondents heard the questions asked identically. Where necessary, responses were weighted according to age, gender, ethnic origin, geographical area and number of adults and number of voice telephone lines in the household, so that the sample would reflect the actual demographic proportions in the population, using most recent U.S. Census estimates. In theory, with the stated sample size, one can say with 95% certainty that the results would not vary by more than the stated margin of sampling error, in one direction or the other, had the entire universe of respondents been interviewed with complete accuracy. There are other possible sources of error in all surveys that may be more serious than theoretical calculations of sampling error. These include refusals to be interviewed, question wording and question order, weighting by demographic control data and the manner in which respondents are filtered (such as, determining who is a likely voter). It is difficult to quantify the errors that may result from these factors. Fieldwork for this survey was done by SurveyUSA of Clifton, NJ.
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The only folks who oppose the Tea Party are liberals or those on the dole who don’t like it because we are conservative and feel this country needs to get back to folks being personally responsible, instead of the state providing them with everything on the backs of the ever-diminishing productive.
Yes, I am Tea Party and Constitution Party, ANYTHING BUT the fake conservatives who call themselves republicans or the democRATs who buy votes by keeping people in poverty by enabling them to be on the public dole instead of personally responsible.