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Its capture of key nominations in the Republican Congressional primaries proved its support extended far beyond this core activist group.

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Survey: Most tea partiers are socially conservative, almost half identify with religious right.

Nearly half (47%) also say they are part of the religious right or conservative Christian movement. Among the more than 8-in-10 (81%) who identify as Christian within the Tea Party movement, 57% also consider themselves part of the Christian conservative movement.

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more than half of white evangelicals support the tea party.

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The study found significant overlap between the Tea Party, made up mostly of Republicans, and the religious right.

"Members of the Tea Party are certainly potential supporters of a Christian conservative agenda," said Robert Jones, an author of the study.

Nearly half of those who identify with the Tea Party believe that the Bible is the literal word of God, and a similar proportion thinks that public officials do not pay enough attention to religion, the survey found. They are more likely than the population as a whole to view America as a Christian nation.

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About half of Republicans are non-Hispanic whites who are strongly religious, defined as those who attend church about once a week or more frequently. Forty percent of Republicans are whites who attend less frequently.

Democrats, on the other hand, comprise only 20% highly religious whites, with more than twice as many whites who attend church less frequently.

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Tea Party Closely Linked to Religious Right, Poll Finds

Nearly half of those who identify with the Tea Party movement are part of the religious right, according to a Public Religion Research Institute poll released today.

Eight out of ten Americans who identified with the Tea Party were Christians and 47 percent said they were part of the Christian conservative movement, the poll found.

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The movement remains a small part of the population overall. Christian conservatives make up 22 percent of the population but those who favor the Tea Party only comprise half of that, about 11 percent of the population. An overwhelming majority of Americans, 94 percent, who support the Tea Party movement were white men and more than half were 50 or older.

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Six in ten respondents who said they were part of the Tea Party also said Fox is their trusted source for news, more than twice as high as the general population.

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