Poll: 60 percent says the US is at war with Islamic terrorism
The majority of Americans say the country is at war with radical Islamic terrorism, according to a new poll taken in the aftermath of last week’s terrorist attacks in France.
A survey by the conservative-leaning Rasmussen Reports published Friday found that 60 percent of likely voters believe the country is at war, compared with 24 percent who say the U.S. is not at war.
“President Obama, Hillary Clinton and other senior Democrats refuse to say America is at war with ‘radical Islamic terrorism’ for fear of insulting all Muslims, but voters beg to disagree,” the polling agency said.
Majorities from both major parties said the U.S. is engaged in a conflict with radical Islam: 56 percent of Democrats and 70 percent of Republicans, as well as 54 percent of independents.
Ninety-two percent of respondents also said they regard radical Islamic terrorism as a “serious” threat to national security, including 73 percent who said the threat is a “very serious” one, which is up from 50 percent in October of last year.
American attitudes toward the Islamic faith as a whole also appear to have shifted.
Although a plurality of Americans, 46 percent, still said terrorist groups such as the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) do not represent the true Muslim faith, that number is down from 58 percent in February. Thirty-five percent said ISIS does represent the Muslim faith.
ISIS has claimed responsibility for the Paris attack last week in which at least 130 people were killed and hundreds were injured. The Rasmussen poll surveyed 1,000 likely voters Nov. 17–18. The margin of error for the poll is 3 percentage points.
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