On the one hand, the poll was sponsored by … Daily Kos. On the other hand, Research 2000 is a reputable pollster as far as I know and the way they posed the question wasn’t slanted.

The survey of American adults asked, “Do you believe that Barack Obama was born in the United States of America or not?” It found that 77% of Americans answer affirmatively, 11% say “no,” with the balance unsure.

Notably, that 11% closely tracks the — extremely stable — share of the electorate that thought Obama was a Muslim, bolstering the notion that there’s a certain share of the party’s base (and this may well hold for both parties) that isn’t about to let facts get in the way of negative views of a president of the opposite party…

With nearly a third of Republicans believing the theory, you can see why Republican politicians are inclined to treat it with some respect.

Party-line breakdowns: Dems 93/4/3 (the last figure is “don’t know”), Indies 83/8/9, and GOP … 42/28/30. Fully 58 percent of Republicans aren’t willing to accept a state-issued Certification of Live Birth as proof that The One was born in Honolulu? I’m skeptical, but, er, not so skeptical that I’m willing to poll this myself at HA. Sounds like a job for Scott Rasmussen. How about it, Scottster?

Update: Voinovich 1, Vitter 0.

Only 47 percent of Southern respondents believe Obama was born in the USA. By contrast, 93 percent of Northeasterns said yes, he was born here, 90 percent of Midwesterners did and 87 percent of Westerners.

Wow.