Link reblogged from The Atlantic with 71 notes

theatlantic:

Tea party polling has been an inexact science, and data like these have been used to count (inaccurately) how many people are involved in the movement. Pollsters have gotten more specific at times, asking whether people are members of tea parties, and then asking those people what they think of things, but even self-identification doesn’t seem too reliable to me.



What this suggests, however, is that the movement has lost some of its draw. I’m not one to overblow the sampled responses of 1,504 adults reached by phone between Feb. 22 and March 1 (which is what these numbers reflect), even if Pew is one of the more respected polling entities around. But agreement with the movement—and whatever it signifies to each individual respondent—has dropped by more than a third since September, according to Pew…and that seems to be saying something.

Read the rest at The Atlantic