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Rasmussen Poll: Tea Party over GOP

by elpresidente | 1:16 pm, December 7, 2009 | 3 Comments

Apparently, Tea Party folks AREN’T settling for the GOP:

In a three-way Generic Ballot test, the latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds Democrats attracting 36% of the vote. The Tea Party candidate picks up 23%, and Republicans finish third at 18%. Another 22% are undecided.

Among voters not affiliated with either major party, the Tea Party comes out on top. Thirty-three percent (33%) prefer the Tea Party candidate, and 30% are undecided. Twenty-five percent (25%) would vote for a Democrat, and just 12% prefer the GOP.

Ed Morrissey at Hot Air nails it:

The news here is not good at all for Republicans, however. Even registered GOP voters split 39/33 on whether to vote for a generic candidate from their own party. This reflects the damage done to the GOP during 2001-6, when voters thought they were electing small-government, fiscal-restraint politicians, and wound up instead with porkers who spent hand over fist. Democrats don’t have that same kind of problem; they have 71% of their voters locked in to the party, with only 7% favoring the Tea Party brand. Independents, as noted above, are even less enamored of the GOP, favoring the Tea Party 33/12, with 25% going Democrat.

The key in 2010 is to have the GOP represent the Tea Party brand, and the only way to do that is to firmly insist on fiscal restrain and reduction of government as the platform for the election. The Right needs to put aside all of its usual hobby horses and focus on the message from the Tea Party movement. If they need an excuse, call it a moment of national crisis as the Democrats attempt a takeover of the health-care and energy industries. The next election has to be fought on those narrow terms in order to bring the GOP into line with the tea-party momentum and unite against what is clearly a fringe progressive movement to massively expand an already-broke government.

If the Republican Party can do that, these generic numbers will become formidable. If not, expect another cycle of loss and frustration.

GOPers should take note–the voters (and not just Tea Partiers, but rank-and-file Republicans) may just sit on their hands and stay at home, or as we saw in NY-23, go third party if a viable candidate emerges. This poll makes it clear: the sentiments against the party’s behavior go beyond a few bloggers and a handful of activists.

2010 could present a watershed moment for the Republican Party–seizure of an immense opportunity at both state and national levels, or the snatching of defeat from the jaws of victory due to ham-handedness and indifference.

The former is certainly preferable and my preferred outcome; the latter is entirely possible and would be a disaster for this country.

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Category: 2010

Comments

  1.   Mr Bob
      December 7th, 2009 @ 1:22 pm

    I don’t think it would be indifference…I’d say incompetence. The inability to see America as the majority sees it, the land of opportunity being destroyed by corruption in both parties.

  2.   elpresidente
      December 7th, 2009 @ 1:23 pm

    Point taken.

  3.   The Peripatetic Pundit
      December 7th, 2009 @ 3:37 pm

    Hey – this poll is even bigger than Ben DeGrow!

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