With Sarah Palin talking about a 3rd Party run for President, a recent Rasmussen poll becomes all the more relevant. What if there really were a "Tea Party"?
In a three-way Generic Ballot test, the latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds Democrats attracting 36% of the vote. The Tea Party candidate picks up 23%, and Republicans finish third at 18%. Another 22% are undecided.
Among voters not affiliated with either major party, the Tea Party comes out on top. Thirty-three percent (33%) prefer the Tea Party candidate, and 30% are undecided. Twenty-five percent (25%) would vote for a Democrat, and just 12% prefer the GOP.
Among Republican voters, 39% say they'd vote for the GOP candidate, but 33% favor the Tea Party option.
These are national numbers, so I can only assume that the Texas sample is even more skewed towards the Tea Party folks, possibly enough to make them the largest party in the state if they were an option.
This raises a relevant question- if there really was this much electoral support for another party, why are the Debra Medinas and other Tea Party-esque candidates running primaries in Texas bothering to do so as Republicans? Why not spend their time gathering the 45,000 or so petition signatures needed to form a new Party in Texas with ballot access for the general election? If Debra Mediana got 5% of the million or so possible GOP primary voters statewide, that would be enough for the Tea Party movement to gain ballot access. As a result, they would have a far more tremendous politics impact as a general election party.
That would be a statement and one heck of a general election. |
