McLaughlin & Associates, which polled for Trump’s presidential campaign, asked voters: “Do you approve or disapprove of President Trump’s executive order to stop immigration for 90 days from the following failed Middle Eastern Countries: Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen so we can increase our security checks of these refugees?” A majority, 57 percent said they approved of Trump’s executive order, while 37 percent disapproved.
Of those who favored President Trump, 90 percent backed his executive order, while only six percent disapproved. Over a quarter of voters who viewed him unfavorably of him, 26 percent, still supported his executive order while 67 percent disapproved.
Republican voters overwhelmingly back the president: 88 percent support his executive order. Meanwhile, 53 percent of independents—and 31 percent of Democrats—also support an immigration pause that allows the U.S. to tighten security checks on refugees coming from unstable, terror-exporting countries. Similarly, 81 percent of conservatives, 50 percent of moderates, and 32 percent of liberals also support the executive order.
Then, McLaughlin & Associates expanded on Trump’s executive order in a detailed follow-up question:
The Trump administration is trying to ban terrorists. The terrorists happen to be Islamic radicals. These terrorists happen to get their support and come from certain Middle East countries who are majority Muslim. Without penalizing all Muslims, we need to screen out possible terrorists from the refugees coming to the United States. Since the current FBI and Homeland Security Directors, cannot certify that a refugee from these seven countries is not a terrorist, do you agree or disagree that we need to pause and take a 90 day break from allowing refugees from these countries to enter the U.S., until a system is in place that assures that each refugee is not a threat to Americans?
Sixty-one percent of voters agreed that the U.S. should take a 90-day breather in order to better screen out potential terrorists. Twenty-eight percent disagreed. Meanwhile, 87 percent of Republicans, 40 percent of Democrats, and 59 percent of independents agreed.
The second question, with its neutral explanation of the migration freeze also mustered more support from moderates: 60 percent agreed, compared to 36 percent of liberals and 82 percent of conservatives.
By contrast, overheated media reports falsely labeled the refugee resettlement pause as a “Muslim ban,” fueling hysteria and emotional protests. Republican strategist John McLaughlin said it was important to frame the question in a neutral manner.
“It’s really a terrorist ban,” McLaughlin told Breitbart News. “They’re portraying it as a Muslim ban. It’s not. It’s not. We dealt with this during the campaign when they were trying to portray it as a Muslim ban. It was really a terrorist ban.”
“They won’t call it a terrorist ban, because it would be popular,” he added.
The poll also sampled slightly more Democrats than Republicans—36 percent to 33 percent—and questioned more Hillary Clinton voters than Trump voters, according to McLaughlin.
“If you look at this objectively, the president has full majority approval,” McLaughlin said. “If someone is trying to spin this into something it’s not, they’re playing politics and they’re just trying to play politics with national security.”
The poll, commissioned by Secure America Now, surveyed 1,000 likely voters online from Feb. 2 to Feb. 6 with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points, and a confidence level of 95 percent.
