More Americans now think Muslims should be monitored by the government as potential terrorists, a new poll shows.
According to a Rasmussen Reports survey released Friday, 32 percent of respondents support the idea of tracking most individual Muslims – up 10 points from
a July 13 poll after the Boston Marathon bombing – though 52 percent oppose the idea. Sixteen percent are undecided.
In a partisan breakdown, Republicans are far more receptive to the near-blanket surveillance of Muslims, with 43 percent in favor of such tracking; only 24 percent of Democrats and 29 percent of independent voters are supportive.
"Even prior to the recent killings in Paris by radical Islamic terrorists, 49 percent of all voters felt the federal government is not devoting attention to the potential threat of domestic Islamic terrorism," the pollster noted,
citing its survey from Oct. 7.
The latest survey has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
President Barack Obama is planning to allow 10,000 Syrian refugees into the country in 2016 – a move that is
getting pushback even from lawmakers in his own party.
In other findings:
- 45 percent of self-described politically conservative voters think the government should monitor most Muslims; 30 percent of moderates and only 10 percent of liberals share that view.
- 38 percent of those who consider radical Islamic terrorism a "very serious" threat to the United States support monitoring most Muslims as potential terrorists.
- 39 percent of those who think the United States is at war with radical Islamic terrorism support tracking individual Muslims; 47 percent disagree.
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