Can Mitt Romney Win Without Tea Party Support?

ANALYSIS| Of course Tea Party activists would like the Republican candidates for president to believe that not receiving the Tea Party official stamp of approval will cost them the 2012 GOP nomination, but do they really have that kind of power? If one watches Fox News and CNN, one might think so. But does it actually exist? Mitt Romney has almost no support from Tea Partyers, according to a recent CNN article, yet he leads the Republican field in most national polls by a large margin.

"My prediction would be is that somebody is going to fill that vacuum, the true fiscal conservative in the race," said Matt Kibbe, president of the Tea Party organizer FreedomWorks. He added, "We're not waiting. We're shopping."

At a June planning session, 150 Tea Party organizers were invited and asked to name their top choice for the 2012 GOP nomination. Only one supported former governor Romney.

Romney's most challenging problem with Tea Party members seems to be the health care reforms that he endorsed and signed into law in Massachusetts while governor of the state. He has defended the reforms, noting differences between the state's health care reforms and the unpopular reforms undertaken by the Obama administration. Many in the Tea Party movement, like Kibbe, feel that his defense of Massachusett's health care system is "doubling down."

Another part of Romney's problem is the evangelical vote. Since 44 percent of Tea Partyers self-identify as evangelicals, the members not lost on the health care could be lost among that particular demographic because of Romney's Mormon beliefs. A recent Gallup poll indicated that 18 percent Republicans and 19 percent Independent voters said they would not vote for a Mormon for president, which would indicate that, since nearly 80 percent of Tea Party members are Republicans or Republican-leaning Independents, there is most likely some overlap.

As troubling as the numbers might be, it should also be considered that, despite all the media hype and coverage given the Tea Party movement, their actual numbers may not be that strong. According to Patchwork Nation, a reporting project of the Jefferson Institute that studies American demographics, online databases only point to Tea Party membership nationwide as around 67,000 individuals. As Jefferson Institute Director Dante Chinni pointed out in an article for PBS, even if magnified ten-fold, the number of actual Tea Partyers remains insignificant.

So can candidate Mitt Romney simply write off the Tea Party during the 2012 Republican nomination process and hope they realign with the GOP if he eventually wins the Republican nomination for president? Or does he find a way to woo the seemingly more conservative element to his camp, such as offering the vice presidency to the likes of Tea Party Caucus leader Rep. Michele Bachmann or Tea Party favorite Herman Cain? The movement does seem to have a strong media presence, especially at Fox News Channel, which has been accused of fostering a marginal fringe movement as a national groundswell. But perception can be powerful thing. And regardless of how powerful the Tea Party actually is, the perception of its power and influence is seen as rather important in GOP circles.

As it stands, in the coming weeks and months, unless Romney alters his political stance considerably, it appears as if he will campaign without much, if any, Tea Party support. Although it might hurt him somewhat in the Republican race, it might not hurt him at all in the general election, as nearly half of Americans' hold an unfavorable opinion of the Tea Party movement.