From NewMax.com:

A new poll indicates that most voters, by a 48 percent to 44 percent margin, believe the tea party’s views are closer to their own than President Obama’s are.

The question that Rasmussen Reports posed to 1,000 likely voters: “When you think about the major issues facing the country, whose views are closest to your own, President Barack Obama or the average tea party member?”

Forty-eight percent answered that the average tea party member’s views were closer. Forty-four percent selected President Obama, and 8 percent weren’t sure.

Despite weeks of media reports portraying the tea parties as extremists, among all-important independent voters the pro-tea party sentiment was even stronger.

Fifty percent of those not affiliated with a party favored the tea parties, compared to 38 percent who say President Obama’s thinking more closely reflects their own.

“Unaffiliated voters are continuing the pattern they established in 2006 and 2008 of opposing the party in power,” pollster Scott Rasmussen observed. The author of In Search of Self-Governance added. “The American people don’t want to be governed from the left, the right, or the center. They want to govern themselves.”

The poll also found that, by a 45 percent to 35 percent margin, voters considered the views of the average tea partier closer to their own than the views of the average labor union member.

There was one group the tea party lost out to, however. By 47 to 41 percent, voters said the average school teacher was more in touch with their own views than the average tea party member. Twelve percent were undecided.

Still, the tea party fared relatively well on that question compared to members of Congress.

Just 15 percent of voters thought the average member of Congress had views closer to their own, compared to the average school teacher.

NewsMax.com also reports that a poll shows that 40% of tea partiers identify themselves as independent or democrat, expelling the myth being perpetuated by the mainstream media, that the tea partiers are all conservative republican racist old white guys:

Four in 10 Tea Party members are either Democrats or Independents, according to a new national survey.

The findings, first reported in The Hill, offer one of the most detailed looks so far at the conservative grassroots movement that started last year.

According to three national polls by the Winston Group, a Republican-leaning firm that conducted the surveys on behalf of an education advocacy group:

• The national breakdown of the Tea Party composition is 57 percent Republican, 28 percent Independent and 13 percent Democrat.
• Two-thirds of the group call themselves conservative, 26 are moderate and 8 percent say they are liberal.
• Tea partiers are united around two issues – the economy/jobs and reducing the deficit. They believe that cutting spending is the key to job creation and favor tax cuts as the best way to stimulate the economy.
• 61 percent of Tea Party members believe infrastructure spending creates jobs. Moreover, given the choice Tea Party members favor 63-32 reducing unemployment to 5 percent over balancing the budget.
• The group has a favorable view of the GOP generally but that drops from 71 to 57 percent if they’re asked about Congressional Republicans.
• Congressional Democrats are viewed very unfavorably by 75 percent of Tea Party members. An overwhelming 95 percent said, “Democrats are taxing, spending, and borrowing too much.”
• Over 80 percent of Tea Party members disapprove of the job President Barack Obama is doing as president, whereas 77 percent of Republican respondents said they disapprove of Obama.

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