When the 112th Congress started in January, more Americans anticipated a positive rather than negative role for the newly elected members affiliated with the tea party political movement. Now, a new Washington Post-Pew Research Center poll finds public opinion tilted the other way.

In the new poll, 29 percent say congressional representatives associated with the tea party have had a “mostly negative” effect, 11 percentage points higher than the number expecting a negative impact at the beginning of the term. Now, 22 percent see a “mostly positive” effect, down five points.

Still, as anticipated in January, about half of all Americans say the tea party supporters in Congress have either had "not much of an effect" or expressed no opinion.

The see-saw in public opinion on tea party-affiliated members is particularly apparent among Democrats and independents. In January, 30 percent of Democrats and 14 percent of independents said tea party members would have a mostly negative effect; those numbers have jumped to 49 and 28 percent, respectively.

Republicans, by contrast, are little shifted since the beginning of the year. By more than 4 to 1 Republicans see tea party members as having a more positive than negative effect. As in January, there’s a big gap between Republicans who agree with the tea party and those who don’t: 77 percent of tea party Republicans see the effect as positive, compared with just 19 percent of other Republicans (nearly half of others say “no effect” whatsoever).

Read the full poll results .

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