A new Washington Post / ABC News poll conducted by Gary Langer shows the Teaparties movement continuing its downward slide in popularity (see our extensive coverage at Tea Parties).

From the PDF (link, write-up here):

...Interest in learning more about Tea Party is down 7 points from spring 2010... six in 10 Americans aren’t particularly interested in additional information about the Tea Party, and 41 percent aren’t interested "at all." Thirty-nine percent have at least some interest, but just 9 percent are very interested. Among those with interest, moreover, more than six in 10 already support it.

All told, 41 percent of Americans identify themselves as supporters of the movement, compared with a high of 47 percent last September. Forty-five percent oppose it; 14 percent have no opinion. Support has dropped disproportionately among young adults in that period, down 20 points from 51 percent to 31 percent.

While overall support is roughly balanced with overall opposition, "strong" opponents outnumber strong supporters by 2-1. But perhaps most damaging is the buzz: Fifty percent of Americans say the more they hear about the Tea Party, the less they like it; just 27 percent say they like it more. That compares with a much closer (albeit still negative) 43-34 percent split on this question in April 2010.

These views have grown more negative particularly among young adults, seniors, women, moderates and people in the $50,000 to $100,000 income range, all with 10- to 17-point increases in "like it less" responses as they hear more about the Tea Party movement.

The poll was conducted April 5 to 8, 2012 among a "random national sample of 1,003 adults, including landline and cell-phone-only respondents".

The questions asked were:

On another subject, what is your view of the Tea Party political movement - would you say you support it strongly, support it somewhat, oppose it somewhat or oppose it strongly?

How interested are you in learning more about the Tea Party movement - very interested, somewhat interested, not so interested or not interested at all?

Which of these comes closest to your own view: (The more I hear about the Tea Party movement, the more I like it) or (The more I hear about the Tea Party movement, the less I like it).

The last two questions were also asked on April 25, 2010 and a comparison table is provided in the PDF. The first question was previously asked several times over the past year and shows the Teapartiers being generally at a low point in a narrow popularity range.

Teaparty popularity would be even lower if not for the incompetence of their major opponents, such as Rachel Maddow. It isn't difficult to show the ideas of libertarians (or those who lean in that direction, such as the Teapartiers) wrong. However, Maddow and the entire Democratic Party establishment have shown it's far beyond their abilities.

UPDATE: Ed Morrissey of HotAir discussed a few days ago how the WaPo/ABC poll's sampling was skewed to favor Democrats (link). That doesn't matter all that much to the current case because the downward trend of Teaparty popularity is the issue, not the percentages themselves.

The current poll has the following breakdown ("901. Generally speaking, do you usually think of yourself as (a Democrat), (a Republican), an independent or what?"):

Democrat: 34%, Republican: 23%, Independent: 34%, Other (vol.): 5%, No opinion: 3%

The 4/25/10 poll (link) had this breakdown ("901. Generally speaking, do you usually think of yourself as (a Democrat), (a Republican), an independent or what? IF NOT DEMOCRAT OR REPUBLICAN: Do you lean more towards the (Democratic Party) or (Republican Party)?"):

Democrat: 34%, Republican: 23%, Independent: 38%, Other (vol.): 4%, No opinion: 1%

Those proportions are very close, and at the same time the percentage of those who choose the "The more I hear about the Tea Party movement, the more I like it" option has gone from 34% to 27% and the percentage who choose "The more I hear about the Tea Party movement, the less I like it" has gone from 43% to 50%.