In fact, not in most of Connecticut, according to this fascinating map by Patchwork Nation.
Windham County has the highest concentration of Tea Party members in the state — 5.01 for every 10,000 people. New London County is next, with 3.74 per 10K. Hartford and New Haven counties had the lowest percentages.
Patchwork Nation, a project of the Christian Science Monitor that is funded by the Knight Foundation and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, scoured online directories to find people who have registered with Tea Party groups. It’s “not a perfect system but one that captures the overwhelming najority of registered members,” writes Dante Chinni on the Patchwork Nation blog.
(The methodology leaves one question unanswered: The Tea Party movement’s identity is wrapped up in the fact that it isn’t a political party in the traditional sense: no one registers as a member. It is a loose affiliation; no paperwork required, which makes tracking down “members” a challenge.)
Patchwork Nation carves the nation into 12 community types, based on certain socio-economic and demographic criteria. For example, rural Custer County, Nevada is dubbed “Tractor Country” and Miami-Dade County is “Immigration Nation.”
In Connecticut, Fairfield County is one of the “Monied ‘Burbs” and Windham County is a “Service Workers Center.”
The survey found the highest concentration of Tea Party members in “Boom Town Counties” – places such as Walton County, Ga. and Oldham County, Texas. “Tractor Country” and “Military Bastion” counties also had higher than average Tea Party membership.
The lowest concentrations? Not surprisingly, it was the biggest cities and places with larger African-American populations, Chinni writes. Hartford, dubbed an “Industrial Metropolis,” had a negligible number of Tea Party members.