Gallup Poll: Americans Willing to Vote for Jewish Presidential Candidate
JEANNE MESERVE, CNN ANCHOR: And how does the American public feel about having a Jewish candidate on the ticket? Well, a CNN Gallup poll shows they may not have a problem. Right now, Gallup Editor in Chief Frank Newport joins us with details from the survey -- Frank.</s>FRANK NEWPORT, GALLUP POLL EDITOR IN CHIEF: Jeanne, we've been asking Americans about the influence of religion on their support for presidential candidates for many, many years here. Here's the question: Would you vote for a candidate who was otherwise well- qualified who happened to be Jewish? All the way back to 1937 when we first asked it, it was below 50 percent. But it's gone up over the years. As of last year, you can see here, it was 92 percent who said, yes, they would. In other words, they wouldn't have any problem with a candidate being Jewish. To put this in some context, there are three other religions we also asked at the same time: being a Catholic, 94 percent said, no problem; being a Baptist -- that's germane because Al Gore is Baptist -- no problem there. Actually, it's being a Mormon, which we first started asking with George Romney, would create more of a problem than any of these other religions. Of course, it was John Kennedy who was Catholic. That number, by the way, was 71 percent who said yes to a Catholic in 1960. He was elected, of course. Finally, we always, Jeanne, like to remind you, Does the veep choice matter? Well, we asked this a couple of weeks ago. Only 13 percent of Americans claimed that in their voting history it's ever mattered who was selected to a vice president. We'll see what happens with this choice. Jeanne, back to you.</s>MESERVE: Frank Newport, thanks.