A newly released Gallup poll shows that Muslims are the religious group most likely to support President Barack Obama by wide margins.
The poll tracked approval ratings from a variety of religious groups for the first six months of 2014, revealing that 72 percent of Muslims said they approve of the president, compared to only 20 percent who disapprove.
The 72 percent rating has dropped from the previous rating of 77 percent, which held from January 2009 to 2014. All religious groups listed in the poll saw a minimum drop of at least five percentage points from prior surveys.
For Muslims, the Gallup sample size was 552 participants, with a margin of error of plus or minus 6 percentage points.
That Muslims have the highest approval rating for Obama makes sense in light of how many identify with the Democratic Party. According to the Pew Research Center, 63 percent of Muslims are either Democrats or lean towards the left.
Currently, Mormons are the group with the lowest approval rating for President Obama. Only 18 percent of Mormons approve of the job Obama is doing, coming from a sample size of 1,724 Mormons, which resulted in a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points. Catholics also scored just over the edge of a disapproval rating of 51 percent. Protestants tend to be similarly disapproving, although they are much less generous. Only 37 percent of Protestants approve of the president, compared to 58 percent disapproval ratings.
For the entire sample of all religious groups, the margin of error only amounts to plus or minus 1 percentage point. Relative rankings between religious groups have not changed since the beginning of Obama’s presidency.
The drop reflected by Gallup’s latest poll results accurately maps the downward approval trend among all Americans.
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