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POLITICS

“Tea Party” Is Seen Less Negatively As a Political Label

Voters see “Tea Party” a bit less negatively as a political label these days, while “liberal” and “progressive” have lost ground even among Democrats.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that “conservative” is still the most favored description. Forty-two percent (42%) of Likely U.S. Voters say they view it as a positive if a candidate is described as politically conservative. Twenty-one percent (21%) say it’s a negative description, and 36% rate it somewhere in between the two. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

Conservative, in fact, is the only political label other than “moderate” that is a net plus for a candidate.

Calling someone a Tea Party candidate is seen positively by 31%, unchanged from September, but negatively by 32%. Thirty-three percent (33%) put it somewhere in between. In September, 38% viewed Tea Party as a negative.

Being described as a progressive, on the other hand, is a positive for 22% of voters and a negative for 34%, with 41% seeing it in between. But in the previous survey, voters were evenly divided, with 29% saying progressive was a positive description and 28% describing it as a negative. This marks a continuing downward trend for progressive which little over three years ago was slightly more popular than conservative.

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The survey of 1,000 Likely Voters was conducted on January 3-4 2011 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.

How do unaffiliated voters feel about “Tea Party” these days? Which label does the Political Class prefer? Become a Platinum member and find out.

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