While, as president, Donald Trump has worked to cultivate a relationship with Arab leaders, the antipathy towards Arabs and Muslims that he and his party have cultivated in recent years continues to have a worrisome impact on American public opinion and policy.

Recent polling conducted three weeks after Trump’s summits in Saudi Arabia, establishes the persistence of a deep and disturbing partisan divide in American attitudes toward Arabs and Muslims. On many questions, the views of Democrats and Republicans are exactly the opposite of one another, with Republican attitudes toward the two communities being extremely negative and the views of Democrats being overwhelming positive. For example, even after Trump’s visit, only 18% of Republicans have a favorable view of Muslims while only 20% have favorable views of Arabs. This stands in marked contrast to the 59% and 58% of Democrats who are favorably inclined toward Muslims and Arabs, respectively.

These are some of the observations that can be gleaned from the latest Zogby Analytics poll conducted for the Arab American Institute in mid-June of this year. The AAI/ZA poll surveyed 1,012 voters nationwide.

AAI/ZA have annually examined US opinion on these issues for two decades in order to better understand attitudes toward Arabs and Muslims and the challenges faced by Arab Americans and American Muslims. As a result, it is possible to observe changes over time.