Rasmussen:

Many More Now Following Mosque Controversy – And Don’t Like It
Monday, August 23, 2010
A lot more voters are paying attention to the plans to build a mosque near the Ground Zero site of the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York City, and they don’t like the idea.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 85% of U.S. voters say they are now following news stories about the mosque planned near Ground Zero. That’s a 34-point jump from a month ago when only 51% said they were following the story.

The new finding includes 58% who are following the story very closely, up from 22% in mid-July.
Now 62% oppose the building of a mosque near where the World Trade Center stood in Lower Manhattan, compared to 54% in the previous survey. Twenty-five percent (25%) favor allowing the mosque to go ahead, and 13% more are not sure.

Sixty-eight percent (68%) of the Political Class, however, favor building the mosque near Ground Zero. Seventy-seven percent (77%) of Mainstream voters are opposed.

Since the July survey, the local New York City zoning debate over the planned 13-story Cordoba mosque has escalated into a national controversy. It has even been addressed by President Obama, who supports the building of the mosque in the name of religious tolerance. Opponents of the project, including many who lost loved ones in the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, see the mosque as a deliberate provocation that dishonors the memories of the 3,000 people who died that day.

In mid-July, most voters in New York (58%) opposed the building of the mosque near Ground Zero. Twenty percent (20%) supported it, and 21% were undecided.

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The survey of 1,000 Likely Voters was conducted on August 19-20, 2010 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology.

Sixty-three percent (63%) of voters nationwide say the building of the mosque near the 9/11 site is insensitive. Just 23% disagree.

Only 22% say they are at least somewhat confident that the mosque is being built to honor those who died in the 9/11 attacks, as some have suggested. That’s down eight points from last month.
Sixty-seven percent (67%) are not confident that the mosque is intended to honor those killed by the terrorists. This includes eight percent (8%) who are Very Confident and 41% who are Not At All Confident.

Still, just 49% say the mosque issue is at least somewhat important in terms of how they will vote, with 27% who say it is Very Important. Forty-six percent (46%) view the mosque as unimportant to their vote, including 20% who say it is Not At All Important.

There’s a high level of interest in the mosque story across all demographic categories.

Yet while 85% of Republicans and 62% of voters not affiliated with either party oppose the building of the mosque near Ground Zero, Democrats are evenly divided on the question. There’s a similar division of opinion in the president’s party over whether the location of the mosque is insensitive, while Republican and unaffiliated voters believe strongly that it is.

But most Democrats like the majority of GOP voters and unaffiliateds are not very or not at all confident that the mosque is being built to honor those who died on 9/11.

Fifty-two percent (52%) of the Political Class, on the other hand, are confident that the mosque will honor those killed by the terrorists. Eighty-two percent (82%) of Mainstream voters don’t share that confidence.

Fifty-eight percent (58%) of Mainstream voters say the mosque issue is important to how they will vote, with 34% who say it is Very Important. Political Class voters say overwhelmingly that the issue is not important to their vote.

For the first time this year, the number who believe America is safer today than it was before the 9/11 terrorist attacks is slightly higher than those who disagree.

Voters are now as pessimistic about America’s relationship with Israel as they are about relations with the Muslim world.

Iran’s first nuclear plant has just gone online, and some speculate that Israel will take military action against it. Fifty-one percent (51%) of U.S. voters believe the United States should help Israel if it attacks Iran.