Public Policy Polling just released the results of their new national poll, and what they learned about Donald Trump’s supporters is pretty much exactly what you would expect: 61 percent don’t believe President Obama was born in America, 62 percent think he is a secret Muslim, and 63 percent want the U.S. Constitution amended to end birthright citizenship. However, while these percentages are higher than those of the overall GOP electorate polled by PPP, a majority of Republicans still agreed on two out of the three: 54 percent thought Obama was a Muslim, and 51 percent supported ending birthright citizenship, while only 44 percent* still believe Obama wasn’t born in the U.S. When looking at the views of Republicans supporting other candidates, only those backing Marco Rubio, Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, and John Kasich were more likely than not to believe Obama is a legitimate American by birth.
Elsewhere in the GOP field, Ben Carson — who was shown to be gaining on Trump in Iowa via a new Des Moines Register poll released over the weekend and then tied with Trump in another Iowa poll by Monmouth University — is also doing increasingly well nationally. According to today’s PPP results, he currently has a 68 percent approval rating among Republicans, by far the highest of any candidate, with Rubio’s next-highest approval rating at 58 percent. In addition, Carson is the only candidate who would currently defeat Trump in a head-to-head matchup, and was the most popular second choice of Republicans reached in the study (13 percent). Nationally, Trump currently leads Carson 29 to 15 percent, while Jeb Bush occupies third place with 9 percent.
Also notable in the poll results was that Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly’s disapproval numbers went from 9 to 20 percent following her dustup with Trump, though Fox News itself doesn’t seem to be taking a hit from its war with the candidate.
*This post originally stated that the poll reported 29 percent of GOP voters as still thinking Obama wasn’t born in the U.S. The correct number is 44 percent.
