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POLITICS

Most Tea Party Members Think Those They Elected Won’t Sell Out, Others Aren’t So Sure

Most Tea Party members view the candidates they elected in November as agents of change from government business as usual, but non-members are a lot more skeptical.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone poll finds that only 34% of all Likely U.S. Voters think Tea Party candidates elected in November will remain true to their beliefs. A plurality (46%) says they will become just like other politicians. Twenty percent (20%) aren’t sure. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

But among those who identify themselves as members of the Tea Party, 77% say the candidates they elected will remain true to their beliefs, and just 13% disagree.

But, among those with no ties to the Tea Party Movement, 61% believe Tea Party candidates elected last month will become just like other politicians. Twenty-one percent (21%) of this group think those candidates will stick to their beliefs, and 18% are undecided.

This level of skepticism is perhaps not surprising given that most voters are largely pessimistic about what the new Congress will accomplish in areas like immigration, taxes and government spending in the next two years.

(Want a free daily e-mail update? If it's in the news, it's in our polls). Rasmussen Reports updates are also available on Twitter or Facebook.  

The survey of 1,000 Likely U.S. Voters was conducted on December 15-16, 2010 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology.

MAD AS HELL: How the Tea Party Movement is Fundamentally Remaking Our Two-Party System, the new book by Scott Rasmussen and Doug Schoen, can be ordered at Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble, Borders and other outlets. It's also available in bookstores everywhere.

Will Tea Party activists be satisfied with how the politicians in Washington perform over the next two years? How confident are unaffiliated voters that the newly elected Tea Party members of Congress won’t sell out? Become a Platinum member and find out.

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