USA Today/Gallup: Election chances of likely candidates

[Tender Branson]

Obama:

31% Definitely vote for
23% Might consider voting for
46% Definitely not vote for

Romney:

  6% Definitely vote for
42% Might consider voting for
45% Definitely not vote for

Huckabee:

  7% Definitely vote for
39% Might consider voting for
46% Definitely not vote for

Trump:

  7% Definitely vote for
28% Might consider voting for
64% Definitely not vote for

Palin:

  8% Definitely vote for
26% Might consider voting for
65% Definitely not vote for

http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/2011-04-25-trump-president-poll.htm

[Mehmentum]

It seems that Obama, Romney, and Huckabee are about even on people completely opposed to them, though Obama has more supporters, thats will change once the Republicans nominate someone. 

[Mr. Morden]

The poll also asks people if Obama was born in the USA and if Trump was.  Only 63% of voters say that Trump was "probably" or "definitely" born in the USA, which compares to 56% for Obama:

[Mr. Morden]

Oh, and here's the breakdown of birtherism by Obama support.  Yes, a handful of "birthers" are Obama supporters:

[Hash]

I wonder what a birther Obama supporter is like.

[emailking]

I wonder what a birther Obama supporter is like.

Probably someone who isn't aware that the President needs to be "naturally" born. A lot of people being polled are probably not even aware there is a controversy.

[Mr. Morden]

I wonder what a birther Obama supporter is like.

Probably someone who isn't aware that the President needs to be "naturally" born. A lot of people being polled are probably not even aware there is a controversy.

Indeed.  We talked about this about two years ago when birtherism was just emerging.  There is presumably a large fraction of the population that doesn't understand the "natural born citizen" rule, and is only vaguely aware that there's some kind of controversy over Obama's birthplace.  Or they're thrown by the question, and think it's a trick question and give a strange answer.  Or they correctly believe he was born in Hawaii, but don't realize that it's part of the USA:  http://publicpolicypolling.blogspot.com/2009/08/deeper-look-at-birthers.html

Those people may believe he was born outside the USA, but don't realize that that would have any impact on his eligibility for president, or make his presidency "illegal".  Some of those people are going to be Obama supporters.  At least one of the polls even showed that there were some "birthers" who are black and Obama supporters.  They're birthers in the sense that they think he was born overseas, but not in the sense that they think there's something wrong with that, or that there's a big conspiracy over it.

[Badger]

Additionally, I'd like to think there's a number of low-information voters who tend to believe the buzz they've heard about Obama being born in Africa, but don't care anyway. God Bless America, I say.

Please let this be true.

[Lief 🗽]

I'm sure at least a few percent of that is just people trolling because it's such a ridiculous question.

[Stranger in a strange land]

I wonder what a birther Obama supporter is like.

Probably someone who isn't aware that the President needs to be "naturally" born. A lot of people being polled are probably not even aware there is a controversy.

Probably quite a few people don't know that the president has to be a natural-born citizen and assume that because Obama has a foreign-sounding name, he must have been born abroad. Also, I would wager that an embarrassingly large number know he was born in Hawaii but don't know Hawaii is part of the U.S., or think it isn't a state and therefore isn't covered by the natural born citizen requirement.