Two-thirds of New Hampshire Republican voters favour ban on Muslims

Initial exit polling from Tuesday’s New Hampshire primary reveal that some two-thirds of Republican voters support a ban on Muslims entering the United States.

NEW: 2/3 of New Hampshire GOP voters favor temporarily banning Muslims who are not US citizens from entry, per preliminary exit poll results

— ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) February 9, 2016

The idea of a ban on Muslims was first floated by Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump in December 2015. Trump, who was projected to win the state's primary, had called for a “total and complete shutdown” of Muslims entering the United States.



The exit polls also show that four in 10 primary voters say undocumented immigrants should be exiled, ABC News reported.

In December last year, Trump had called for a “total and complete” block on Muslims entering the United States, in the wake of a mass shooting in California by a Muslim couple believed to have been radicalised. A statement from Trump’s campaign team said the halt on Muslims entering the country should remain in place “until our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on.”



"Until we are able to determine and understand this problem and the dangerous threat it poses, our country cannot be the victims of horrendous attacks by people that believe only in Jihad, and have no sense of reason or respect for human life," he had said.

However, Senior White House officials in response, lined up to condemn Donald Trump’s proposal to ban Muslims from entering the United States, saying it was contrary to US values and interests.



“You’re being generous by describing it as a proposal,” said White House spokesman Josh Earnest, castigating the fiery Republican presidential frontrunner’s latest outburst as “cynical.”

“I think what Mr Trump is doing is something that he’s been doing over the course of his entire campaign, which is… to play on people’s fears in order to build support for his campaign.”