From The Hill:

Four in 10 Tea Party members are either Democrats or Independents, according to a new national survey. The findings provide one of the most detailed portraits to date of the grassroots movement that started last year. The national breakdown of the Tea Party composition is 57 percent Republican, 28 percent Independent and 13 percent Democratic, according to three national polls by the Winston Group, a Republican-leaning firm that conducted the surveys on behalf of an education advocacy group. Two-thirds of the group call themselves conservative, 26 are moderate and 8 percent say they are liberal.

Here is 10,000 pennies on the subject that explains why many conservatives jumped ship from Bush’s spending policies: