Poll: Tea Party Third Party Candidates Hurt GOP

Wednesday, 24 Mar 2010 03:51 PM
By: Dan Weil

Tea party activists may not be as helpful to Republican candidates in November Congressional elections as the party hopes.

That’s the upshot of a new poll from Quinnipiac University.

Respondents said that without a tea party candidate on the ballot, they would vote 44 to 39 percent in favor of Republicans over Democrats.

But if there’s a tea party candidate on the ballot, the numbers go like this: 36 percent for Democrats, 25 percent for Republicans and 15 percent for tea party candidates.

“The tea party could be a Republican dream – or a GOP nightmare,â€