Posted on 09/24/2004 8:54:07 PM PDT by Former Military Chick
WASHINGTON, September 24 (IslamOnline.net) - With US presidential elections looming large, polls showed a drastic decline of American Muslims' support for US president George Bush in the coming November elections.
Nearly 68% of US Muslims said they would vote for Democrat presidential hopeful John Kerry in the presidential elections, against only 7% eager to vote for the incumbent Bush.
According to the poll -- conducted by the Zogby International Center - and surveying 1700 US Muslims, around 11% of the Muslim community are willing to vote for the independent candidate Ralph Nader in the coming elections.
The poll also showed a turnout among the US Muslims' support for the Republican Party as only 12% said they support the Republicans, against 23% in the 2001 polls.
Around 50% of the US Muslims said they support the Democratic Party rising from 40% in 2001, while the support for independent candidates has increased to hit 31%, against 28% in previous polls.
Drastic Turnout
Polls in 2000 showed Muslims favoring Bush over Al Gore by a wide margin - some showed support in the 90 percent range - and some groups argued that some 60,000 Muslim votes put Bush over the top in Florida.
It's amazing how much can change in four years, according to the Zogby website.
“He is not the president he promised to be in 2000,” Samer Hanini, a 29-year-old architect, was quoted on the website as saying.
“He failed us in areas of Mid East peace, foreign policy and the economy. I’m embarrassed I voted for him.”
After the Sept. 11 attacks, and the anti-terror policies that followed, Muslim leaders who had organized the Bush endorsement said openly they had made a mistake , the USA Today said in a report last week.
On April 29, a poll conducted by the Washington-based Arab American Institute revealed that a majority of Arab Americans in four battleground states would vote for Kerry if presidential elections were held that day.
Political Unity
Feeling their influence in the US elections, the American Muslims are willing to politically unite during the November presidential elections as 81% expressed support for the agenda of the US Muslim civil rights and elections committee.
According to the Zogby poll, around 69% of those polled said they would vote for the presidential candidate whom the US Muslim committee favors.
Some 53% said they prefer to vote in the presidential elections as one group.
The US Muslim civil rights and elections committee comprises a number of major Islamic organizations in the United States, foremost of which are the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the American Islamic society, the American Muslim coalition, the Islamic group for North America and a group of Islamic groups in the country.
The agenda of the committee for the November elections touches on enhancing civil rights in the country as well as other issues of concern for the American public as education, economic reform, environment, election system reform and the dissemination of peace and justice.
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