Most GOP Voters Critical of Republicans in Congress, Like Tea Party

(Rasmussen Reports) – Republican voters remain strongly critical of how their party’s representatives in Congress are performing and have a highly favorable opinion of the Tea Party movement that is pushing the GOP more to the political right.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that only 19% of Likely Republican Primary Voters believe Republicans in Congress have done a good job representing the party’s values over the past several years.

Seventy-two percent (72%) say GOP members of Congress instead have lost touch with Republican Party members throughout the nation in recent years. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

These findings have remained basically the same in surveys since November 2008.

Seventy-nine percent (79%) of likely GOP primary voters hold a favorable opinion of the Tea Party movement, while only nine percent (9%) view the smaller government, lower taxes movement unfavorably.

Among all voters nationally, 41% view the Tea Party favorably, while 40% regard it unfavorably, with 19% undecided.

The survey of 1,000 Likely Republican Primary Voters was conducted on October November 1, 2010 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence