Poll: Jews like Obama more than most others

(JTA)—Jews gave President Obama an above-average job approval rating compared to other religious groups in the U.S.

A new Gallup poll found that Muslims gave Obama the highest job approval rating out of the religious groups polled, while Mormons gave him the lowest. Jews and those affiliated with other non- Christian religions gave him above average ratings, along with those who had no religious affiliation.

From January to July 2010, Jews gave Obama a 61 percent approval rating, down from 66 percent from July to December 2009. Muslims gave him a 78 percent approval rating during the first half of 2010, and Mormons a 24 percent rating. The overall approval rating is 48 percent, down 15 points from the first half of 2009.

Obama received average job approval ratings from Catholics, and below-average ratings from Protestants.

Despite drops in the overall job approval rating from January 2009 to July 2010, Muslims have consistently given Obama the highest rating and Mormons the lowest. Jews’ approval ratings have remained above average.

The results are based on phone interviews with a random sampling of 276,123 adults with a 1 percent margin of error. Jews, Muslims and Mormons each made up about 2 percent of respondents.