Tea Party Rating Drops To Lowest Level
A man in a Captain America costume raises his fist as dozens of Tea Party supporters rally near the U.S. Capitol against raising the debt limit in Washington (Reuters)

Only 30 percent of Americans now view the Tea Party favourably, representing their poorest rating since 2010, according to polls.

Fifty-one percent of Americans viewed the Tea Party unfavourably as public support for the movement dropped to a minority.

The drop was described as a "new low" by Gallup, who conducted the poll. Some 58 percent of Republicans viewed the Tea Party favourably while 28 percent viewed it unfavourably.

The movement has expressed conservative goals but is perceived to be responsible for the government shutdown in October.

Unsurprisingly, 80 percent of liberals expressed a dislike of the Tea Party in contrast with 12 percent who viewed them in a positive light.

"The image of the US Tea Party was fairly neutral in 2010, when it helped Republicans retake majority control of the US House of Representatives.

"But Americans now hold a more negative opinion than ever of the conservative bloc," Gallup said in the report.

"The Republican and Democratic parties have also been suffering from an increasingly negative public image, and as long as the Tea Party is viewed as contributing to the unpopular partisan conflict in Washington, rather than remedying it, the movement is likely to remain controversial," Gallup added.

The poll was conducted by randomly-sampled telephone interviews with a pool of 1,031 adults.