Health Reform and the Tea Party Movement

With much media discussion of the role that the Tea Party will play in the upcoming Congressional midterm elections, this data note takes a closer look at Tea Party supporters using the most recent Health Tracking Poll data from September.

While 57 percent of voters who do not support the Tea Party movement view the health reform law “very” or “somewhat” favorably, 57 percent of Tea Party supporters view the law “very” unfavorably, and another 11 percent “somewhat unfavorably.” At the same time, nearly two-thirds (63 percent) of Tea Party supporters say they feel “angry” about health reform, even though most (82 percent) of these say their anger is more widely targeted at Washington as a whole rather than specific to the reform law.

Data Note (.pdf)