More On Birther Nation - Some Polling Data

Talking Points Memo posted this yesterday:

A new Daily Kos/Research 2000 poll finds that 77% of Americans believe President Obama was Indeed Born in the United States, with only 11% saying he was not -- but there's no clear verdict among Republicans.

Among Republicans, it's a much weaker plurality of only 42% who say Obama was born in the U.S., with 28% saying he was not, with a very high undecided number of 30%. Among Democrats, the number is 93%-4%, and among independents it's 83%-8%.

This means that for Republicans to openly admit that Obama is indeed a natural-born American citizen, they risk alienating a significant chunk of their loyal base. And on the other hand, they could scare away independents by humoring the tin-foil hat crowd.

Here are the numbers for the poll.

And then things get curiouser. An update at TPM:

Another thing to point out is that Birtherism is heavily concentrated in the South. Only 47% of Southerners say Obama was born in the United States, 23% say he was not, and 30% aren't sure.

Steve Benen of the Washington Monthly has some more on this:

A new Research 2000 poll conducted for Daily Kos asked respondents a rather straightforward question: "Do you believe that Barack Obama was born in the United States of America or not?" Since the president was born in the U.S., ideally, the results would be around 100%.

They weren't. There was, not surprisingly, a significant partisan gap. Only 4% of Democrats are confused about the president's place of birth. The number is slightly higher among independents, 8% of whom got it wrong. Among Republicans, though, 28% -- more than one in four -- believe President Obama was not born in the United States.

For a crazy, demonstrably false, racist idea, these are discouraging numbers.

But I was especially surprised by the regional breakdowns. In the Northeast, West, and Midwest, the overwhelming majorities realize the president is a native-born American. But notice the South -- only 47% got it right and 30% are unsure.

Outside the South, this madness is gaining very little traction, and remains a fringe conspiracy theory. Within the South, it's practically mainstream.

And some art:
Hmmm...Southern conservatives skew the GOP's numbers regarding the authenticity of an African-American's claim to be an American citizen.

Who would've guessed that would be the case?