Ben Smith has the results of a Research 2000 poll that are, quite honestly, shocking:
A new Research 2000 poll, sponsored by the site DailyKos, finds broad traction among Republican voters for the belief that President Obama was not born in the United States.
The survey of American adults asked, “Do you believe that Barack Obama was born in the United States of America or not?” It found that 77% of Americans answer affirmatively, 11% say “no,” with the balance unsure.
Notably, that 11% closely tracks the — extremely stable — share of the electorate that thought Obama was a Muslim, bolstering the notion that there’s a certain share of the party’s base (and this may well hold for both parties) that isn’t about to let facts get in the way of negative views of a president of the opposite party.
Here’s the rather depressing party breakdown:
Yes No Not sure
Dem 93 4 3
Rep 42 28 30
Ind 83 8 9
Yes, it’s a poll sponsored by Daily Kos and I”m sure that will be a point of criticism, but it’s worth noting that the Research 2000 poll out performed such well-known polls as the ABC/Washington Post poll, Gallup, the CBS/NY Times poll, and the Fox News Poll in 2008.
Moreover, even if these numbers are off by 10-15%, it’s still disturbing that nearly 1/3 of Republicans are buying into the birther nonsense, and, as Dave Weigel notes, it’s not all that different from the polls in 2007 that showed that as many as 35% of Democrats believed that Bush might have had advance knowledge of the 9/11 attacks.
Republicans, you’re on notice. Repudiate these people, or risk the consequences.
Update: Steve Benan provides a helpful chart that shows the poll’s breakdown by region:
The one region where the GOP continues to remain strong is the one region where birtherism seems to have taken hold the strongest. That’s very discouraging.
Full poll results here.
July 31st, 2009 at 9:44 am
Hell, I heard eight years of democrats claiming that Bush wasn’t a legitimate president. For that matter, they were also telling me that Bush and Cheney were going to ignore the upcoming election, declare martial law, and imprison anyone who criticized the Iraq war.
Don’t even try pretend that only one wing of the Ruling Party is nuts.
-jcr
July 31st, 2009 at 10:28 am
People must realize that some people in the USA ignore the facts to justify there values and beliefs. Unfortunately this makes all US experts useless. If an idea comes from the USA it has less to do with science and technology but religion and politics.
H
July 31st, 2009 at 10:42 am
I’m not really surprised by these numbers. In my part of the country (West Texas) they’re everywhere. I have family members who sincerely believe we’ve seen our last presidential election! I get a sense that some can’t grasp the concept that the majority of people might have knowingly and purposefully voted for Barack Obama. So, in order to explain his winning the election, they are convinced that it was rigged, that he’s a Muslim, that he wasn’t born here, etc. At this point it’s almost like some sort of defense mechanism. I know this much for sure: even if someone were to come up with another document verifying his birth in Hawaii, it wouldn’t be enough. Reminds me so much of the “selected, not elected” business that persisted despite all the media recounts confirming that Bush had indeed won.
July 31st, 2009 at 1:27 pm
John C. Randolph, you are free to equate truthers with birthers, and remain intellectually dishonest.
Truthers did not permeate the Democratic party like the birther cancer. No Democratic leaders endorsed it. Democratic members of Congress did not scuttle away from the media when asked to defend this loony theory. No hard evidence was ever produced for truthers, so they always remained on the fringe. Indeed, Al Gore, ever the gentleman, misguided or no, stepped aside for what he thought was the good of the country.
Not so the birthers, who despite being shown the same document any of us would produce to claim licenses and offices, have managed to drag the GOP further into mental illness. That you require “more” confirms your crybabyism, at least.
Nice try. Do try to join us in the present from time to time.
July 31st, 2009 at 3:00 pm
So, Republicans are attempting to draw from the fringe Dem playbook (Rigged Florida recount, AWOL from National Guard service, etc.)?
And better still, they’re choosing the plays that didn’t even work. Brilliant! The Repubs are out-of-touch with an out-of-touch model. That should be successful if the goal is to keep wandering the political wilderness.