from Religion News: The PRRI/RNS Religion News Poll was based on telephone interviews of 1,015 U.S. adults between Feb. 11 and 13. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
Overall, men, viewers who trust Fox News, white evangelicals and Republicans are more likely to think the hearings are a good idea and to believe Muslims want to establish Shariah law in the United States.
Those groups are also among the most likely to say they feel “well informed” about Islam and the “religious beliefs and practices of Muslims.”
These groups aren’t necessarily more knowledgeable, however—just more confident in their beliefs, researchers explained. Researchers said a person’s preferred news source is significantly correlated to how much they worry about American Muslim extremism.
“What we’re seeing here is a significant Fox News effect,” explained Daniel Cox, PRRI research director. “We even see differences among Republicans who trust Fox News most and those who trust other media.”
— One in five (22 percent) Americans believes U.S. Muslims want to establish Shariah law here. This view is far more common among Republicans (31 percent) than Democrats (15 percent), people who trust Fox News (35 percent) than those who trust public television (9 percent), and white evangelicals (34 percent) than white mainline Protestants (20 percent) or white Catholics (22 percent).