MARK MITCHELL, RASMUSSEN REPORTS: Hello, public opinion, aficionados and welcome to Rasmussen Reports. And you’re going to hear something a little bit different out of me today, a topic we haven’t really talked about, but it’s very important. And we have some fresh new numbers. And I think they tell us something that you’re not going to expect about politics today, and that is the issue of radical Islam. We’ve done a lot of polling on that, but not like this. We’re polling on the threat to the homeland through Islamic immigrants, something a lot of people haven’t really asked questions about. And it’s a nice break from the advice after advice, after advice that I’ve been giving the Trump administration, how to avert a Democrat win in November of twenty twenty six. Check my other videos out. There’s a lot of good content out there. And it’s in the news a little bit more. I think partly it’s because of the stuff going on with Iran. I think some people are trying to sort of gin up some reasons to go over there and get entangled in something that is probably a. Ill advised break from the things that Trump should be focused on, which is restoring the American dream and brutal government reform. I’ll say that over and over and over again. But also we ask this question set because there was an interesting event down in Texas, one of the places where that they’re having one of these Sharia communities take root. Steve Bannon was one of the people there. This is an article out of The Daily Signal. Here’s why Steve Bannon is focused on Texas. Steve Bannon, a former adviser to President Donald Trump, is targeting Texas politics ahead of primary elections that could reshape politics in both Austin and Washington. Bannon, who hosts the War Room podcast on the network Real American’s Voice, announced Friday at a conference in Grapevine, Texas, that he would be covering politics in the Lone Star State building to five episodes a week as we get into February. We’re going to have War Room, Texas. He said, I got to get all the grassroots on the show the next couple of weeks. Both the Republican and Democratic primaries for the 2026 Senate race in the state will take place March 3rd. Senator John Cornyn, Senator John Cornyn faces primary challenges from both Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and Republican Representative Wesley Hunt in the state’s Democratic primary. Jasmine Crockett recently entered the race and will face off against Representative James Tlarico. Additionally, primary elections will be held for all 38 U.S. House districts in the state. Texas is second only to California in the size of its congressional delegation. Due to redistricting efforts and a host of retirements, these primaries will play a major role in determining Texas’s representation in Washington. Primaries will also be held for all 150 Texas state House seats, as well as half of the state Senate seats. Texas Governor Greg Abbott and Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, both Republicans, are seeking reelection as well. Early voting for the March primaries begins February 17th. If no candidate receives over 50 percent of the vote in the primary election, that would trigger a May 26 runoff. I mean, it goes on. Bannon delivered his remarks at the Save Texas from Radical Islam Conference, where he mentioned Abbott’s designation of the largest Muslim activist group in the country. Care the Council on American Islamic Relations as a foreign terrorist organization. Bannon said his previous coverage of the state politics, namely the impeachment of Paxton and congressional redistricting drew large audiences. The Supreme Court in December ruled to keep Texas’s new GOP friendly state congressional map in place ahead of the 2026 midterms. So like reading between the lines here, Texas is a big focus just because it’s so huge. And Donald Trump obviously did very well there in Texas, better than most people thought. But I also think that 2024 may be a high watermark for MAGA Republicans. And if Republicans underperform here, which would be the trend based on November 2025 special elections, there could be a lot of unexpected losses here to the Democrats. So, you know, this looks like finding issues that matter locally in the state, trying to whip the grassroots up into a froth. And they’ve had problems with H1B jobs and with, you know, the Islamic stuff. And it’s kind of weird to be saying that about Texas, you know, as a hotbed of Republicanism, this should be one of the reddest states and may not be the case forever. And, you know, there’s a lot of strong feelings about it. I don’t think I can actually read Valentina Gomez’s quote. She’s running for Congress in Texas as well. But the headline on Yahoo News via media, a congressional candidate vows to kick every dirty Muslim out of Texas in appalling campaign video. You might want to go check that one out yourself. But this is the poll we did. Most voters are concerned about radical Islam. And we’ll get to the crosstabs. This was done just last week. How concerned are you about the influence of radical Islam in the United States? And 37 percent are very concerned, 24 percent somewhat. So that’s only a combined total of 61 percent. That’s actually really low. I mean, yes, a majority of Americans are concerned. But only 37 percent very concerned. Quite frankly, this puts it in the territory of like abortion and climate change. If we did a stack rank issue set, I wonder if it would even be in the top 10. This is significantly fewer Americans than are concerned that we’re living in a police state. 72 percent of Americans and nowhere near the top issue of concern, which is violent domestic extremists, 90 percent are concerned. 90 percent are concerned about political violence in America, not the 61 percent who are concerned about radical Islam. 34 percent are not concerned, but only 12 percent are not at all concerned. There isn’t a gender signal. It’s pretty flat across men and women. And 18 to 29 year olds are pretty low there. Only 48 percent are concerned. Only 26 percent very pick up a few points with the millennials. But it’s older voters who are most concerned. Sixty five percent of voters over 50, basically. And black voters are less concerned than other races. And there’s a party signal. Fifty three percent of Democrats are concerned. Only 27 percent strongly. But Republicans are much more concerned. Seventy six percent, 53 percent strongly concerned. And independents aren’t that concerned. Fifty two percent and 43 percent of independents are not concerned, but only 15 percent not at all concerned. So those numbers are like actually surprisingly kind of low. And we’ll look back at a prior poll when people cared more about radical Islam. And you’ll see, although it’s not apples to apples, the temperature is hotter, you know, about a decade ago. But if a candidate for public office is a Muslim, does that make you more likely or less likely to support them? And this is a very important takeaway, because a lot of people are saying you can’t vote for Mamdani. He’s a Muslim. That’s terrible. We can’t have Muslims running the country. And Ilhan Omar, she’s got to get out of here because she’s a Muslim and she shouldn’t be an elected representative. Well, you know, that’s not the right line of attack. That’s pearl clutching and that’s performative. And Americans don’t care about performative politics. If the best thing that you can come up with that you don’t like about Mamdani or Ilhan Omar is their religion, I think you could do a little bit better. Like maybe the fact that they’re communists or maybe the fact that she’s probably implicated in immigration fraud or some of these rings like, really, we’re going to make it about religion. America isn’t really here for it. Eight percent say more likely. So that number is very low, but only 35 percent say less likely. And obviously, some of these people are lying. It’s impossible to know how much. But 50 percent say it makes no difference. And again, not really much of a gender signal. And if you look at age, there’s really not that much of a signal at all, except that less likely only beats more likely by 21 points among the zoomers. But among older voters, more likely loses to less likely by 35 points. So a little bit of a bigger spread, but pretty much, you know, on average, about half of everybody by age says it doesn’t make much difference. And from a party signal perspective, in line with decreasing support of Israel, Democrats are much more open to Muslim candidates. 62 percent say it doesn’t matter to them. Only 20 percent say they’d be less likely to vote for a Muslim. 11 percent more likely. Only eight percent of Republicans say more likely, but 57 percent say less likely. So Republicans are against Muslim candidates. But, you know, only a 57 percent majority and independents. They don’t really care that much, either. Twenty nine percent say less likely. Only five percent say more. Do you support or oppose Muslims establishing their own communities in the United States? And so we didn’t say under Sharia law, many people probably inferred it, but we didn’t say it. And so maybe that’s one reason that opposition isn’t higher here. But only 63 percent of America opposes and 49 percent strongly opposed. That’s actually pretty high because Americans generally just don’t like to oppose stuff. And this does have a little bit of a feel of like xenophobia in the question. Seven percent strongly support, though. That’s a pretty low number. Another 16 percent somewhat for a combined total of 23 percent. Less than one in four U.S. likely voters approve of Muslims establishing their own communities in the United States. And so I think this is a pretty strong like please assimilate people signal and that religion has some aspect of what people expect to assimilate. You know, there is the context that between six and seven and ten Americans ideas Christian. That’s just part of who we are. And it affects the outcome of questions like this. Now, voters under 30 are much more likely to support this. Forty five percent support and only 43 percent oppose. So it’s a plurality support, but only 14 percent strongly support among millennials, 32 percent. And as the age goes up, the numbers go vastly down. Sixty five and older. These people are only 12 percent support, but they’re 77 percent oppose a really big age signal, just like the Israel versus Palestine tracking question that also now has a massive age signal. And so some of this, I really do honestly believe is related to the the PR implosion that Israel has had over the last two years. Bibi Netanyahu is kind of right. They were losing a social media battle. And of course, now you have the Times of Israel actually saying that Benjamin Netanyahu controls one of the biggest bot armies on the entire Internet. It’s actually wild. You’re not allowed to talk about that here. But the Times of Israel openly talks about it. And there isn’t as much of a party signal as you would expect. 18 percent of Republicans support it, as do 30 percent of Democrats. Seventy four percent of Republicans are against, but only 62 percent are strongly against and 19 percent of independents in favor. Sixty two percent opposed. And what’s kind of strange is that the support numbers by 2024 vote really aren’t that different. It’s 26 percent of Harris voters and 18 percent of Trump voters who support. But Harris voters are much less likely to strongly oppose. Only 38 percent of them, 20 percent are not sure. So I don’t know what that’s all about. But here, just to give you an idea, here’s some random polling I pulled out from 10 years ago, 2015. How serious of a threat is radical Islamic terrorism to the United States? And so this is a different question. It’s not how concerned are you about the influence of radical Islam? And maybe it’s a higher bar because it’s like, OK, this isn’t about like people coming in and just, you know, having their religion and being involved in our politics and setting up communities. It’s like, no, they’re going to blow you up or hit you with a truck. And still 73 percent say very serious. Another 19 percent say somewhat for a combined total of 92 percent. Really, really, really high. Now, I don’t recall off the top of my head if in November of 2015 there had been a recent attack. That maybe is pulling these numbers up, but you can very clearly see, even though the questions are different, a lot less concern, a lot less concern than just 10 years ago about radical Islam. Is the United States at war with radical Islamic terrorism? 60 percent? Yes. 24 percent? No. But surprisingly, no age signal. And so the age signal over the last couple of years about what’s going on in the Middle East, again, is one of the most profound changes in public opinion that we’re tracking. It’s the kind of major swings by age that one would expect to see in the fourth turning. We’ve talked about that a lot. Check out our other content if you want to know more. But here’s what I think the basic takeaway is. This is something called Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. It was proposed by a psychologist back in the 40s. It’s very commonly covered in psychology classes, but also in places like military leadership, understanding what drives human beings. And I think it applies to public opinion. And if you think about the 80s, maybe. Or the 60s or 70s, I don’t know. This America that we feel like we lost, that everyone wants to get back to. It feels like people were focused on the absolute top of the hierarchy of needs. Self-actualization. You have everything else fulfilled. And so this is about what human do you become? How do you transcend? How do you impact the world? And back then, I felt like I was going to. I felt like I was smart. I was going to have a huge career. There was a ton of opportunity available to me. It was just a given. I would find a beautiful wife and get married and have a lot of great kids and they’d have a good education and my community would be awesome. And so I looked at a path forward of self-actualization. You know, then I think we could say that in the 90s, there was a lot of teen angst. There was a little bit more individualism, maybe a little darker entertainment, a little bit more edgy culture. I think people sort of lost the self-actualization aspect. I think we sort of degraded. I think maybe we were in the esteem rung where people were more concerned about achieving recognition or respect or having freedom. People were rebelling. Then the lower rung is love and belonging, friendship, intimacy, family, sense of connection. I think we lost that as well with social media, with the way the family’s been attacked, with the LGBT stuff, with all of these fights over what relationship looks like and feminism and the whole dating scene. I think we lost that. Then there’s safety. The number one concern in America right now is political violence. And 43 percent of America thinks there’s going to be a civil war revolution. Half of America thought there was going to be a violent reaction to the 2024 election, regardless of which candidate won. I think we’ve lost the safety needs wrong. I think people do not feel safe. And right now, what people are concerned about is the physiological needs. Air, water, food, shelter, sleep, clothing, reproduction. They can’t find a mate. The dating scene sucks. Women are crazy. There’s feminism. The women don’t want kids. They don’t want to get married. The younger women don’t want that. We’ve covered a lot. Really great NBC News poll. Shelter. The median first time homebuyer age is 40 years old. You have to work 18 years in America to buy a house. Shelter is more expensive compared to income than it’s ever been. Food, Biden, inflation, groceries, soaring. And yes, inflation has been curbed, but the prices of groceries have not come down and they’re not going to come down. Donald Trump can talk about egg prices all he wants. Grocery prices are not going to come down air. We’re even talking about chemtrails. Remember, 60 over 60 percent of America supported a law banning chemtrails. Like I would even add, if the government isn’t functioning, if all of the institutions that America relies on. How can we have these physiological needs? Because this is a culture, it’s a society. Food depends on other humans. Water depends on other humans. Shelter depends on other humans. And humans can’t be trusted right now. It’s all fraud. It’s all decay. It’s all a lack of integrity. A lack of personal responsibility. We are on the cusp of the fourth turning when a new era of leadership steps up and fills a vacuum of values and hopefully restores the hierarchy of needs. Hopefully our society can transcend the sorry state we’re in right now. But I think that this really explains. Americans need to be able to trust the government. Americans need to know that our economy is on a path to recovery and that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. And focusing right now on radical Islamic terrorism. And focusing right now on radical Islam. I just don’t think it’s going to do it. I think it reeks of, you know, performative politics of 20 years ago. I think that it’s not Americans’ top concern, as this polling shows us. If you want to talk about something, then talk about the way that H-1B immigrants are stealing the high paying jobs and depriving Americans of their physiological needs. You need to be talking at this red level. Everything needs to be laser focused on this. And yes, brutal government reform is physiological needs because the system doesn’t work. I would put fairness in here. It doesn’t work unless there’s fairness and a two tiered system of justice. Elected representatives who cannot be held criminally accountable. A deep state that a deep state that’s impervious to any form of justice. Our society can’t exist. That’s a physiological need. And so everything needs to be framed at this bottom rung of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs at restoring the American middle class and brutal government reform and rebuilding trust in the system. And one of the ways you do that is obviously deporting a lot of people. Get rid of people who won’t assimilate. Shut the doors to legal immigration. Deport as many people as possible. And also things like what Trump is talking about today. Society cannot subsist when you have blue states that will fight the federal government. And he called out potentially using the Insurrection Act. And that sounds like a really good polling topic. So we’re going to go into the field with that. Also, some great new numbers on Iran. And I don’t know. It looks like the administration might get involved in some way. So we’ll have numbers back next week for you. It also looks like Trump is going to lay out a very important economic speech in Davos on the 24th. Not sure why he’s telling the world’s financial elite what what’s going on with our middle class economy. But I’ll be here for it. I’ll watch that. We’ll react to it and check us out tonight. We’re going to stream only one time this week. It’s been a really busy week. Went to Washington, D.C. Make sure you like the video and subscribe so that you’ll get the notification when we go live tonight. Hope to see you there. It’s a it’s a very interactive experience. We do a lot of questions, a lot of Q&A and look up things and have a good time. So we’ll talk public opinion tonight. See you there at 9 p.m. Eastern. And make sure you check out our other YouTube video. Rasmussen underscore rewind. And please help me out. Help me out on Instagram. I just started it. It’s kind of it’s kind of taken a while to get off at. Honest Polster on Instagram. A lot of really great short clips there. Thanks again. Hope to see you tonight. If you’ve learned something, make sure to like the video and subscribe. [Speaker 2] Follow us on X at Rasmussen underscore poll and myself at Honest Polster. You can watch our videos on YouTube at Rasmussen underscore poll and Rasmussen underscore rewind and our Rumble at Rasmussen reports. We stream multiple times a week on Twitter, Facebook, Rumble, YouTube and getter. Thanks for watching.

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