Congressional approval rating sinks lower

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Poll: Americans Don’t Approve Of Ryan’s Plan For Medicaid, Either

By Tanya Somanader

On Tuesday, New Yorkers in the state’s 26th Congressional District delivered House Republicans a clear message that House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) plan to end Medicare won’t fly. But a new poll shows that the American public’s distaste for Ryan’s proposal doesn’t stop at Medicare. According to a new Kaiser Family Foundation poll, 60 percent of those polled prefer the keep Medicaid — the federal heath insurance system for the poor — “as is,” as opposed to Ryan’s detrimental block grant program. Indeed, more than half want to see no reductions in Medicaid spending at all because of “a strong sense of the program’s importance.” Indeed, many said they had benefited or knew people who had benefited from the program directly:

Support for maintaining the current program may be due at least in part to the public’s personal connections to Medicaid and a strong sense of the program’s importance. About half of Americans say they or a friend or family member has received Medicaid assistance at some point, and a similar share say the program is important to their family.

Even those who initially supported Ryan’s Medicaid block grant idea said the Democratic position could sway them into maintaining Medicaid as it is. As The Huffington Post’s Emily Swanson notes, “The survey suggests the Republican Party might make some inroads in changing public opinion, but likely not enough to attain majority backing.” Overall, the Kaiser poll verified previous polls‘ findings that general cuts to vital entitlement programs like Medicaid and Medicare to reduce the deficit is an agenda deeply out of line with the American public.

Gallup: Tea party negative ratings at record high

By David Ferguson

Gallup polling released new survey results on Friday, showing that negative opinions of the so-called tea party movement have risen sharply in the US. Independent voters have turned away from the conservative group.

The poll shows that only a core constituency of Republicans and conservatives now view the fledgling political movement positively.

The organization began tracking the tea party just over a year ago in March of 2010. At that time, the ultra conservative group had a 37% favorable and 40% unfavorable rating.

Those numbers stayed flat until January of this year when the first round of tea party supporting legislators were sworn in to the U.S. Congress.

According to Gallup, "The April 20-23 USA Today/Gallup poll finds favorable opinions of the Tea Party movement dropping to 33%, from 39% in January, and unfavorable opinions rising to 47% from 42%."

Men 50 and older count for the strongest base of support for the political group, whereas women 50 and older poll most strongly against it. The number of tea party members has remained stagnant, with the heaviest concentrations in the southern states.

Read more about the new poll results here.

Poll: More disagree than agree with tea party

By Eric W. Dolan

More Americans now disagree with the tea party than agree with it, but the majority are indifferent to the conservative movement.

According to a national survey conducted by the Pew Research Center, 29 percent of Americans said they disagree with the Tea Party, while 22 percent agree, but forty-nine percent of those surveyed said they do not have an opinion either way.

Tea party groups have recently demanded that GOP leaders cut hundreds of billions from the federal budget and roll back numerous regulations. While the percentage of people saying they agree with the tea party movement has remained mostly unchanged, the percentage saying they disagree with the movement has grown 15 points since March 2010.

The rise in the percentage saying they disagree with tea party has occurred largely among political independents and Democrats, with Republicans remaining relatively unchanged.

The percentage of independents disagreeing with the tea party has risen 13 points since March 2010, when only 14 percent said they disagreed with the movement. According to the latest survey, 27 percent of independents now say they disagree with the tea party.

Likewise, the percentage of Democrats disagreeing with the tea party has more than doubled from 21 percent in March 2010 to 51 percent in April.

A CNN/Opinion Research poll released in March found just 32 percent of respondents viewed the tea party favorably, while 47 percent had a negative view of the movement.

Poll: Tea party favorability falls to record low

By Sahil Kapur

WASHINGTON – The tea party has hit rock bottom in the eyes of the American public, a new CNN/Opinion Research poll found Wednesday.

Just 32 percent of respondents viewed the tea party favorably, while a record-high 47 percent had a negative view of the movement that propelled Republicans to dramatic Congressional victories last November. Fourteen percent had no opinion, and 7 percent said they've never heard of the tea party.

The figures come as dozens of tea party-backed House members threaten to scuttle a budget deal on Capitol Hill, which Democratic and Republican leaders would need to reach in order to prevent a government shutdown at the end of next week.

Tea party groups are poised to rally Thursday outside the U.S. Capitol, demanding that GOP leaders refuse to compromise and instead seek the $100 billion in cuts Republicans promised last year before the election. Neither party has come close to such a figure.

In December, the same CNN poll found that 37 percent viewed the tea party favorably, while 43 percent viewed it unfavorably. The numbers were 37 to 37 percent late last October. Last April, 38 percent percent had a positive take on the movement, while 36 percent saw it negatively.

The CNN/Opinion Research poll surveyed 1,023 adult Americans by telephone between March 11-13. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

Tea party unpopularity at an all-time high: poll

By Sahil Kapur

Two months after they voted in droves to topple Democrats from the House and expand Republican voices in the Senate, the tea party movement's disapproval ratings have reached a new high, according to a new ABC/Washington Post poll.

Fifty-two percent of the US public had an unfavorable view of "the political movement known as the Tea Party," the survey found, as opposed to only 35 percent who approved.

"Nearly three-quarters of Democrats -- including as many moderate and conservative as liberal members of the party -- have negative views of the political movement, as do half of all independents," the Post reported.

The same poll conducted in September found that 45 percent disapproved of the movement, while 36 percent supported it. Last March, its favorable rating exceeded its negative by a margin of 41 to 39 percent.

The shift may reflect a populace growing uncomfortable with the divisiveness of the tea party's designated leaders, such as former Alaska governor Sarah Palin, Fox News host Glenn Beck, and Minnesota Republican Michele Bachmann.

Surveys have consistently found that tea party supporters, though independent in self-description, largely reflect the staunchest conservatives in the Republican Party.

A Gallup poll last summer found that 79 percent of tea partyers identify as leaning Republican, while a whopping 62 percent called themselves "conservative Republican."

Forty percent of the electorate in November's midterms described themselves as tea party supporters, according to exit polls, reflecting, if anything, strong political enthusiasm. Tea party voters helped Republicans retake the House by a dramatic margin of 241-174, voting for GOP candidates by a massive 86-11 percent gap.

The fractured movement comprising thousands of groups across the nation began organizing under the "tea party" banner shortly after President Barack Obama took office, voicing rabid disapproval with taxes, spending and deficits.

The ABC/Post poll also found a five-point uptick in Obama's approval ratings during the last month, clocking in at 54 percent, as opposed to 43 who disapprove of his performance.