St. Louis Tea Partiers Give US, Missouri Low Marks

Missouri is doing poorly, but the country is doing even worse.

That’s the conclusion of a survey of 122 members of St. Louis Tea Party Coalition conducted July 26 to July 29 by St. Louis Tea Party Coalition and was available only to members of the coalition who agreed to be contacted via email.

The poll covered a variety of topics, including preferences for GOP presidential and Missouri governor races.

Major Findings

Only 77 percent of St. Louis Tea Party members prefer to vote for the Republican candidate, assuming other parties field candidates:

Ninety-Seven percent believe the country is going in the wrong direction.

When it comes to their personal situation, a plurality of 46 percent say things are about the same as they were two years ago, but 41 percent believe their situation has gotten worse. Only 13 percent feel their situation has improved since 2013.

When it comes to issues, taxes and the economy (50%) are most important, followed by military and defense (28%), and labor and business (8%).

When we asked respondents how the US and Missouri are performing in specific areas on 1 through 5 scale, 1 being worst:

USA

• Economy: 1.26
• National Debt: 1.07
• Employment: 1.28
• Healthcare: 1.22
• National Security: 1.38
• Education: 1.32

Missouri

• Economy: 2.23
• Business Formation: 1.93
• Transportation: 2.10*
• Healthcare: 1.97
• Education: 1.97

 

* St. Louis Tea Party and Heritage Action held a transportation forum the night before polling began which may have influenced this score.

Ninety-eight percent of resondents voted in the 2012 Missouri Primary election.

GOP Race for Governor

As with other polls, Lieutenant Governor Peter Kinder leads the large field with 42 percent, followed by Navy SEAL Eric Greitens and businessman John Brunner each with 24 percent.

Republican Presidential Preference

When it comes to president, St. Louis Tea Partiers favor Ted Cruz (29%) followed by Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker (27%) and Donald Trump (19%).

Second favorite choice for president, were their first choice to drop out of race, holds very good news for Walker (28%) and Cruz (19%). Third among second favorites is former HP CEO Carly Fiorina.

Verbatim Concerns

We asked respondents to write short statements expressing their biggest concerns going into next year’s elections. Here is sample of the comments:

We must begin to turn back the growth of federal control over so many aspects of our lives. Decisions are best made as close to the point of implementation as possible. That is where we have the best chance of accountability.

Our Politicians, the debt and the shredding of the constitution.

Spending/balanced budget, immigration, reduction in size and intrusion of government, national defense, reform of our Supreme Court

Maintain our free existence as a nation, religious freedom, right to life from birth to natural death.

Lack of leadership from both Dems and Repls

When you are fined and put out of business because of your religious beliefs in a country founded on freedom of religion something is definitely wrong. Immigration, legal and illegal is overwhelming this country and paying for all their free entitlements. Sometimes they have more rights than natural born American citizens. Changing our culture to fit them is not right. What ever happened to “the melting pot” to become an American?

The Federal government is completely out of control, operating outside of the constitution. And the populace thinks it’s ok.

We asked a similar question about their concerns for the State of Missouri:

We must promote the state’s business assets in earnest. We must regain control of education transportation and health care by refusing federal dollars and strings.

Lack of leadership, control of the political process by corporate influences.

Growing the economy

Nontransparent,overgrown government. Too much entitlement & fraud.

Unfunded pension liabilities, tifs, supporting professional football with tax dollars, education. criminal punishment, welfare

Right to work passage would change the picture of employment in this state

Infrastructure, Stopping political correctness which keep us from laughing at ourselves and not connecting with each other. Too many people are just waiting to be offended so they can feel morally superior, which again keeps people from coming together.

Governor—President Correlations

We looked at correlations between first choice for governor and first choice for president.

Kinder – Cruz
Among Kinder supports, Ted Cruz is the favorite at 41 percent, followed by Donald Trump at 24 percent. (Kinder was the only candidate with a strong correlation to Trump.)

Grietens – Cruz
Greitens supporters also prefer Cruz at 25 percent, but Greitens had no strong second correlation. In fact, Greitens supporters showed some support for almost every other presidential candidate, including Carly Fiorina.

Brunner – Walker
John Brunner’s supporters are most likely to support Scott Walker. With 54 percent correlation, the Brunner-Walker connection is the strongest among all governor/president combination. Brunner’s second strongest correlation is to Ted Cruz.

Future Tea Party Events

We asked for ideas for topics and speakers at future forums.

Topic Word Cloud

Speaker Word Cloud

About the Poll
The poll was conducted for St. Louis Tea Party Coalition. The poll has a margin of error of 8 percent at 95 percent confidence level. Raw data is available upon request to bill.hennessy-at-stlouisteaparty.com. See full report here.