A poll released by The New York Times on Friday showed that 40 percent of respondents held an "unfavorable" view of the Tea Party, a name that came about in reference to the 1773 Boston Tea Party in which colonists protested against a British tax on tea and showed their opposition by dumping tea into the Boston Harbor.
Before the recession and the election of President Obama, nobody heard the words "Tea Party movement." However, the movement has grown with political leaders such as Michele Bachmann, Sarah Palin and Ron Paul as the most identifiable backers. Many Americans see the Tea Party as predominantly white, conservative and religious. However, the Tea Party is more complex than that.
* The Tea Party, which came together in January and February 2009, has no one founder. It began when Rick Santelli ranted from the Chicago Mercantile Exchange against federal mortgage refinancing and proclaimed that there should be a "Chicago Tea Party" to dump derivative securities into Lake Michigan.
* Although people from the South and West make up most of the Tea Party, 28 percent are from the Midwest and 27 percent are from the East, as reported in a USA Today poll.
* Hispanics, Asian Americans and African Americans make up one-fourth of the Tea Party.
* As much as 46 percent of Tea Party members polled in August 2010 by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press and the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life "had not heard of or did not have an opinion about the conservative Christian movement sometimes known as the religious right."
* According to a CBS News poll, 37 percent of Tea Party members are college graduates compared to 25 percent of Americans overall.
* Members of the Tea Party have a "higher-than-average" household income with 56 percent making more than $50,000 per year.
* Supporters of the Tea Party tend to be 45 years of age or older.
* Men make up more of the Tea Party than women.
* At least 78 percent of Tea Party supporters have never attended a rally, donated to a Tea Party group or visited a Tea Party Web site.
* Fox News is the political and current events information source for 66 percent of Tea Party supporters.




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