Who Thinks Obama is Muslim?
A Pew Research Center News Interest Index survey earlier in March found that 79% of the general public had heard rumors that Obama is Muslim, and 38% had heard "a lot" about this. The current survey finds that most voters have no misconceptions about Obama's religious beliefs - 53% say that he is Christian. But one in ten believes Barack Obama is Muslim. Roughly a third (34%) say they don't know what his religious beliefs are, though 9% say the reason they don't know is that they've heard different things about his religion, not that they haven't heard about it.
Notably, the impression that Obama is Muslim crosses party lines: 14% of Republicans, 10% of Democrats and 8% of independents think he is Muslim. Within both parties, ideology is a major factor: 16% of conservative Republicans believe Obama is Muslim, compared with 9% of moderates and liberals. And 13% of conservative and moderate Democrats believe Obama is Muslim, compared with just 5% of liberal Democrats.
The impression that Obama is Muslim varies by education, region, and religious background. Voters who did not attend college are three times as likely to believe Obama is Muslim when compared with voters who have a college degree (15% vs. 5%). And voters in the Midwest and South are about twice as likely as those in the Northeast and West to hold this belief. Nearly one-fifth of voters (19%) in rural areas say Obama is Muslim, as do 16% of white evangelical Protestants.
But there is little difference by age, gender or race in terms of voters' likelihood of thinking Obama is Muslim. Most notably, about as many black (10%) as white (11%) voters believe he is Muslim.
There is little evidence that the recent news about Obama's affiliation with the United Church of Christ has dispelled the impression that he is Muslim. While voters who heard "a lot" about Reverend Wright's controversial sermons are more likely than those who have not to correctly identify Obama as a Christian, they are not substantially less likely to still believe that he is Muslim. Nearly one-in-ten (9%) of those who heard a lot about Wright still believe that Obama is Muslim. Overall, the impression that Obama is Muslim has at most a slight impact on his fortunes in November - mostly because so few voters hold this belief in the first place. Moreover, Obama is only slightly less competitive against John McCain than Clinton is among the minority who believe this about him. Among the 10% of voters who say he is Muslim, 35% would still choose Obama over McCain in a general election matchup, while 61% would vote for McCain. These same voters would also choose McCain over Clinton, but by a smaller 52% to 42% margin.
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