Tea Party favorability has hit a new low, according to a new Pew Research poll released Wednesday.
Forty-nine percent of the public view the Tea Party unfavorably, while 30 percent view the group favorably. A Pew poll in June found that 45 percent viewed the Tea Party unfavorably and 37 percent viewed it favorably.
The drop in favorability was steepest for liberal and moderate Republicans. Twenty-seven percent of liberal and moderate Republicans view the Tea Party favorably now, while 46 percent had a favorable opinion in June, a 19-point drop.
Pew also found that Sen. Ted Cruz’s (R-TX) favorability dropped among non-Tea Party Republicans, although it has risen dramatically with Tea Partiers since this summer. In July, 16 percent of non-Tea Party Republicans viewed Cruz unfavorably, while in the latest poll 31 percent viewed him unfavorably.
Forty-seven percent of Tea Partiers viewed Cruz favorably in July, and 74 percent view him favorably now, a 27-point jump.
The Pew poll, conducted Oct. 9-13, surveyed 1,504 adults nationwide via phone with a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 2.9 percentage points.
