A staggering number of Republicans believe President Obama is a Muslim

The number of Republicans who think Obama is a Muslim has actually increased since 2010

By Sophia Tesfaye

Senior Politics Editor

Published September 14, 2015 2:27PM (EDT)

  (AP/Susan Walsh)
(AP/Susan Walsh)

A new CNN/ORC poll has found that nearly 30 percent of all Americans do not believe the president is a Christian, including 43 percent of Republicans who say he is a Muslim, while 20 percent of all adults believe he was born outside the United States.

In 2012, when Gallup asked "do you happen to know the religious faith of Barack Obama?" 47 percent of Republicans claimed to have no idea. 43 percent are now certain he is a Muslim, up from the 34 percent of Republicans who told Pew in 2010 that they believed he was a Muslim.

While Republicans' views on President Obama's religion seem to be entrenched in fallacy, their views on his citizenship have become more reasonable.

Despite the nation's most prominent birther dominating the Republican presidential field, the poll also finds that most Republicans have accepted that President Obama was born in Hawaii, not Kenya. CNN reports that 71 percent of all Republican and Republican-leaning voters were satisfied by Obama's 2011 release of his long-form birth certificate after Donald Trump sent a team of investigators to Hawaii to uncover "one of the greatest cons in the history of politics and beyond."

"I don’t know why he wouldn’t release his records," Trump told CNN's Anderson Cooper in July, refusing to backdown from his perch as king of the birthers. According to this latest poll however, 61 percent of Trump's supporters think President Obama was born in the United States. Still, 20 percent of all Americans believe Obama was born outside the United States, with nine percent bizarrely claiming to have solid evidence to prove it.

On that last point, CNN's poll seems to be in stark contrast with a recent PPP poll that found that 61 percent of Trump supporters believed that Obama was born outside of the United States, with 66 percent falsely believing he is a Muslim.

Survey: More Than Half Of Republicans Believe Obama To Be Muslim


By Sophia Tesfaye

Sophia Tesfaye is Salon's senior editor for news and politics, and resides in Washington, D.C. You can find her on Twitter at @SophiaTesfaye.

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Aol_on Birthers Conservatives Gop Muslim Obama Derangement Syndrome Poll President Obama Republicans