Is the Tea Party in its waning days of influence in Washington? Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) seems to think so.
In an interview with the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Reid said “the Tea Party was the result of a terrible economy. I’ve said that many times, and I believe that.”
“That (the tea party) will pass,” Reid added. “They will lose a number of seats next year.”
But if the Tea Party was born out of a bad economy, some signs point to its continued influence, with unemployment stubbornly lingering above 9 percent. And the country’s recent debt ceiling struggle showed the tea party’s muscle, with members of Congress refusing to vote for a deal that contained a whiff of revenue increases.
But as TPM reports, recent polls show Americans starting to sour on the movement. While many voters still don’t have much of an opinion on the Tea Party, the latest CNN numbers shows the the group having a 51 percent unfavorability rating and Gallup shows the Tea Party having its lowest level of support since they started polling the issue.
Read the rest of Reid’s interview here.
h/t The Hill
David Taintor
David Taintor is the Front Page Editor at TPM, where he contributes to TPM's Livewire coverage, among other areas. David is from Chanhassen, Minnesota, where, yes, it gets very cold. Reach him at taintor [at] talkingpointsmemo.com
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