Poll: Fewer Arab voters back Kerry

Post-Gazette ^ | 9/16 | Ann McFeatters

[alydar]

WASHINGTON -- There has been a small increase in the number of Arab American voters in the four battleground states of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, and Florida who view President Bush favorably, but his Democratic challenger, Massachusetts Sen. John F. Kerry, no longer has a majority of Arab American voters.

Reflecting a national trend so far this month that shows Kerry's support slipping, polling by Zogby International for the Arab American Institute found that Kerry's support has declined from 54 percent in July to 49 percent among Arab Americans. In July, 24.5 percent of Arab American voters said they would vote for Bush. Now, 31.5 percent said the Republican president deserves to be re-elected.

Consumer advocate Ralph Nader, an Arab American running an independent third-party campaign, would get about 9 percent of their votes, if the election were to be held now, rather than Nov. 2. That is down from a high of 20 percent in February.

The Arab-American vote is 5 percent of the total vote in Michigan, 2 percent in Florida, just under 2 percent in Ohio and 1.5 percent of Pennsylvania. About a quarter of Arab Americans are Muslim, a third are Catholic, a third are Orthodox Christian and the rest have no affiliation.

This is the fourth of six election-year polls taken by the Zogby polling firm among Arab Americans in the four battleground states, where 1.1 million Arab Americans live and where an estimated 510,000 are expected to vote -- a higher percentage than the country at large.

Arab Americans, a large majority of whom voted for Bush in 2000, have been disaffected with the president because they do not approve of the war in Iraq and believe the administration has tilted toward Israel, instead of being a fair arbiter between Israelis and Palestinians.

James Zogby, director of the Arab American Insitute and brother of pollster John Zogby, said he was puzzled about why Kerry had not differentiated his position from Bush's regarding the war in Iraq and why the Democratic senator has not taken more advantage of the Arab- American community's current anti-Bush sentiments.

He said the debates in 2000 were an important factor for Bush in winning a majority of Arab American votes that year after he mentioned Arab Americans, "and it set off a wildfire of support, because they felt respected."

In the conclusion to the poll report, John Zogby wrote: "The apparent failure of the Kerry campaign to do outreach to Arab- American voters and to define their candidate and his positions has resulted in Kerry's inability to gain ground with a constitutency which, as the polling data demonstrates, was clearly ready for a change. While Kerry might have secured as much as two-thirds of the Arab-American vote, he remains at less than one-half."

[jmaroneps37]

Very typical zombie MO. He will start doing real and legit polls soon to catch up with reality so people only remember the last poll he will put out on Election Monday.

[Cronos]

About a quarter of Arab Americans are Muslim, a third are Catholic, a third are Orthodox Christian and the rest have no affiliation.

And that means 2/3rds to 3/4ths of the Arab vote should go to Bush.