In a three-way generic congressional contest, 36 percent of those polled picked the Democrat, 23 percent chose the hypothetical Tea Party candidate and 18 percent backed the Republican. The GOP actually finished fourth in the imaginary race -- behind "undecided" with 22 percent.
"This is a wakeup call for GOP leaders: they will need to find a way to capture the energy of the Tea Party movement, or else be deluged by it," Tim Mak warned on FrumForum.
The Rasmussen poll found 70 percent of Republican voters have a favorable opinion of the small-government, anti-tax Tea Party movement that rose on a tide of populist protest this year. Support for the generic Tea Party candidate was especially strong among conservatives and independents.
Turning the movement into a true third party would take too long and "would be a self-defeating process, especially in 2010," said Hot Air's Ed Morrissey, who predicted such a move would split conservatives and "produce another Democratic victory."
While there is no Tea Party (what would it be called anyway?), there was something like it in this year's congressional race in New York's 23rd district. A challenger backed by Tea Partiers pushed aside the candidate picked by GOP leaders -- but the Democrat ended up winning in the heavily Republican district for the first time in more than a century.
Reason's Peter Suderman thinks the poll shows what happened in New York "may not be a fluke or mere regional trend." It's a reminder that conservatives are being energized not by the Republican Party, but by "dissident limited-government activists fed up with the two-party system, and in particular with a GOP they no longer trust."
This survey doesn't necessarily mean the party's over for Republicans. Morrissey said the key to success in 2010 is to "have the GOP represent the Tea Party brand." Tax Day Tea Party blogger Eric Odom agreed that unity, not a third party, is the answer for now. "First, Republicans can't win without the movement. Second, the movement can't win without the party. At least not in the short term," Odum said.
A new test of Tea Party power at the polls is brewing in Texas, where Gov. Rick Perry hopes his association with the movement will help him fend off a Republican primary challenge from longtime U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison. Perry is "quick to remind Tea Party activists frustrated with Washington that Hutchison's part of the problem," noted the Dallas Observer's Sam Merten. The Texas governor's contest got even more interesting Monday when Tea Party activist Debra Medina became the third Republican in the race.
