Big Surprise: Republicans Go Birther On Obama — But Easy On Foreign-Born Cruz
A new poll from Democratic-aligned Public Policy Polling shows a remarkable state of belief among Republican voters, about who exactly was or wasn’t born in America.
Responding to the question, “Do you think Barack Obama was born in the United States?” only 29 percent of Republicans answered yes, against 44 percent who said no, and 26 percent were not sure.
The next question from PPP was, “Do you think Ted Cruz was born in the United States?” And here the answer from Republicans was 40 percent yes, 22 percent no, and 39 percent not sure.
According to the (legally) undisputed factual record, President Obama was born in America (Hawaii, to be precise), and Ted Cruz was not.
Although Cruz was born in the city of Calgary in the Canadian province of Alberta, where his parents were living and working in the oil industry, his mother was a U.S. citizen, thus conferring American citizenship upon the young Ted. His Cuban-exile father, however, was for a long time a citizen of Canada, and did not become a naturalized American citizen until 2005. (About a year ago Cruz initiated the legal process to successfully renounce his Canadian birthright citizenship.) It’s probably worth mentioning that Cruz opposes birthright citizenship for children born in America to undocumented parents.
Perhaps not surprisingly, this national poll of Republicans shows that Donald Trump continues to lead the race for the GOP nomination, with 29 percent support. In second place is Dr. Ben Carson with 15 percent, then Jeb Bush at 9 percent, Carly Fiorina 8 percent, and Marco Rubio 7 percent.
A further nightmare for the Republican establishment, Trump also leads in a series of hypothetical two-way matchups — suggesting that his current advantage in the polls is not simply owed to the fact that there is such a large field of other candidates.
However, one candidate does actually lead Trump: Fellow non-establishment candidate Carson, with 49 percent against The Donald’s 43 percent.
The other matchups:
- Trump 59 percent, Bush 34 percent
- Trump 48 percent, Fiorina 41 percent
- Trump 50 percent, Rubio 42 percent
- Trump 53 percent, Walker 39 percent
