Tea Party More Popular Than Dems, GOP

From NBC's Mark Murray and Domenico Montanaro

Just how angry is the public with the country's two leading political parties? Angry enough that the conservative, libertarian-leaning Tea Party movement is more popular than either the Democratic or the Republican parties, according to the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll.

The Republican Party maintains its net-negative favorable/unfavorable rating in the poll, with 28 percent viewing it positively and 43 percent seeing it in a negative light.

For the first time in more than two years, the Democratic Party also now holds a net-negative fav/unfav, at 35-45 percent.

By comparison, the NBC/WSJ poll shows the Tea Party movement with a net-positive 41-23 percent score.

Yet looking inside those numbers, more than three-quarters (76 percent) of those who say FOX News is where they get their news see the Tea Party movement positively, versus just 4 percent who see it negatively.

That's a stark contrast to how viewers of the competing cable networks CNN and MSNBC see the movement. More of those viewers have a negative opinion of it (36 percent) than a positive one (24 percent).

Those who get their news mostly from broadcast TV (either NBC, CBS or ABC) are split -- 28 percent view it positively, versus 27 percent who view it negatively.

The entire NBC/Journal poll comes out at 6:30 pm ET.

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