Fox & Friends casts tea party as nonpartisan, but most supporters are Republican

Written by Dianna Parker

Published

While discussing a recent New York Times/CBS News poll showing the demographics of tea party supporters, Fox & Friends co-host Brian Kilmeade falsely suggested that tea party supporters do not identify with either the Republican or Democratic parties. In fact, the poll showed that a majority of the respondents who identified themselves as tea party supporters also identified themselves as Republican, while 5 percent said they were Democrats.

Fox & Friends suggests poll shows tea party members are “not really part of the Republican Party”

From the April 15 edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends:

GRETCHEN CARLSON (co-host): It's interesting when you look at the hard and fast facts like this of how it breaks down, because the perception of the tea party movement has been different than that. You certainly haven't seen in the mainstream media the perception that tea party members are highly educated or that they have a high income, too, as you look at this next panel, that the demographics show that compared to the average American, people who say that they are part of the tea party movement tend to earn more money.

KILMEADE: All right. So that's why -- really they're not really part of the Republican Party; they're not really part of the Democratic Party. They're doing their own thing, but can they be swayed? Can Republicans bring them into the mix? Can Democrats, like, for example, Nancy Pelosi, who says, I see eye to eye with a lot of what the tea party stands for, could they possibly win over and get some?

In fact, the poll shows that a majority of tea party respondents are Republican

NY Times: “Tea Party supporters tend to be Republican, white, male, married and older than 45.” According to The New York Times, which conducted the poll jointly with CBS News, 18 percent of Americans identified themselves as tea party supporters, and those respondents, “tend to be Republican, white, male, married and older than 45.” According to the poll:

Fifty-four percent identified themselves as Republican. Of the 18 percent who identified themselves as tea party supporters, 54 percent identified themselves as Republican, and 5 percent identified themselves as a Democrat. Eighteen percent said they “always” vote Republican, and 48 percent said they “usually” vote Republican.