A new study reveals a staggering amount of Americans believe U.S. President Barack Obama is a Muslim.
The survey, conducted by Alex Theodoridis with the Cooperative Congressional Election Study, bluntly asked participants what Obama believes “deep down.”
“By asking ‘What [does] Obama believe deep down?’ I was intentionally granting respondents license to stray from the president’s self-reported Christian faith. This reveals a prevalent willingness to distrust this president or categorize him as ‘the other‘ in terms of religion,” Theodoridis writes.
And the results reveal that even the president’s own party fail to believe the president. Less than half of Democrats surveyed—45 percent—believe Obama is a Christian like he says.
In total, 60 percent of the respondents said either they do not know what Obama believes or that he is a Muslim.
Though Theodoridis’ survey shows a significant difference than previous polls, it follows the trend of Americans growing increasingly suspicious of the president’s professed versus practiced religion.
A Pew Research Poll released in 2010 showed a 9 percent increase from 2009-2010 of Americans who thought Obama is a Muslim.
