Only days after he introduced the proposal for a Muslim ban, a December 9, 2015, Bloomberg poll found that over two-thirds of likely Republican voters supported the idea. Over half of likely Republican voters said they “strongly support[ed]” the ban, with 14 percent expressing “not so strong favor” for the measure. On the other side, 25 percent of likely Democratic voters either supported the ban or were unsure, illustrating that Trump’s explicit Islamophobic appeals resonated not only with a large majority of Republican voters, but with a sizable segment of Democratic voters as well. These figures again illustrate that Islamophobia is not exclusive to the right and the swelling segment of new-wave conservative hatemongers dubbed the “alt right,” but, as examined in chapter 1, is also a rising form of animus on the left.

QUESTION: What explains the Democratic minority's support for the Muslim ban? Worth probing drivers beyond partisanship.

Khaled A. Beydoun, American Islamophobia_ Unde…, loc. 507