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IslamOnline Visitors Believe Republicans Will Do No Better
WASHINGTON (IslamOnline) - Participants in IslamOnline’s poll during the week of December 17 - 23, by a slim majority, do not believe a Republican presidency will address Muslim issues in the United States and worldwide any better than if the Democrats had won.
Given two choices, of either answering “Yes” or “No” to whether or not Republicans would be better than Democrats, 58% believed that they would not, while 42% believed a Republican presidency would handle Muslim issues better.
While the difference between either position is fairly close, IslamOnline visitors participating in the poll opted against entirely favoring Republicans over Democrats.
During the election campaign, a coalition of Muslim American groups, under the banner of the American Muslim Political Coordinating Committee - Political Action Committee (AMPCC-PAC) announced their endorsement of then presidential candidate George W. Bush.
One main stated reason for the endorsement was that Bush was more receptive and communicative with American Muslim groups than Democrat candidate Al Gore.
In addition, Bush, in the second of a series of three debates between the two candidates, stated that discrimination against Arab Americans due to events in the Middle East was an issue he would address if voted into office.
After the election, the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) released findings from a survey they conducted within their contact network of newsletter subscribers, e-mail list subscribers and mosques with whom they regularly post their materials.
Results from that survey indicated that over 80% of American Muslims voted for George Bush, and that slightly less had heard of the AMPCC-PAC’s Bush endorsement.
IslamOnline’s own exit polls, interviewing Muslims seen leaving polling stations on November 7th, indicated evenly distributed votes for Bush, Gore and Green Party candidate Ralph Nader.
Virtually every individual interviewed had not heard of the AMPCC-PAC’s endorsement.
Given IslamOnline’s current poll, with a global reach not limited to U.S. Muslims only, combined with IslamOnline exit polls conducted in the U.S., indications are that support for Bush, or the Republicans, may not be as intense and favorable as CAIR’s results among Muslims indicate.
Admittedly, CAIR’s survey results are limited to Muslim Americans. However, polls conducted in such a manner, at times, desire to indicate that Muslims, wherever they reside, would behave as poll results indicate if under same conditions as those polled.
In other words, if Muslims residing outside the U.S. were to live within the country, they would have answered polls and surveys exactly as Muslims already residing in the United States: the exact purpose of polls.
Given that CAIR’s results differ from those of IslamOnline’s limited exiting polling, indications of American Muslims’ beliefs regarding preference of Democrats or Republicans over one another must wait until more a comprehensive polling or survey conducted among the population.
Unfortunately, to this point, American Muslims have not had that benefit.
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