One chunk of the Republican electorate has proved an incredibly fickle voting bloc, denying party unity while the nominating process dragged on. It’s the same group of conservative voters that went from candidate to candidate, looking for an alternative to former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.
Now, out of options, it seems that those who identify themselves as tea party supporters are finally coming home to the presumptive nominee.
Two new national polls released Tuesday showed the same trend — CNN numbers showed that 76 percent of tea party supporters have a favorable view of Romney; a Public Policy Polling survey similarly found 74 percent. That level of favorability within the very conservative cross-section of the party had escaped Romney during most of the Republican primary, as he sustained attacks from the right while other challengers rose and fell.
Below is the trend data on Romney’s favorability among tea party supporters in CNN and PPP polls looking back over the last five months.
Kyle Leighton
Kyle is the Editor of TPM Media’s PollTracker. He graduated from Beloit College (WI) and began working in politics before getting an M.A. in magazine journalism from New York University, where he interned at TPM and the website of The New Yorker.
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