The Council on American-Islamic Relations released poll results this week showing that 68 percent of American Muslims support President Obama while just 7 percent support Mitt Romney (1 in 4 remain undecided). These results reflect a new reality for Republicans: American Muslims are rushing toward Democrats. In 2008, 49 percent of Muslim-Americans felt “closer” to Democrats. Now that number has shot up to 66 percent. That’s in contrast to the population as a whole, where Democratic favorability has actually gone down 11 percent.

It’s only recently that the numbers shifted. In 1992, a majority of American Muslims voted for George H.W. Bush. While Bill Clinton won the American Muslim vote in 1996, Muslims continued to trend toward Republicans for the next several years. Mother Jones’ Tim Murphy wrote about a moment in 2000 when a Muslim American political action committee endorsed a Republican:

“The new political action committee spurred voter registration drives and candidate forums, and served as a portal for fundraising efforts; it ultimately endorsed Bush, after securing key promises on the use of secret evidence in deportation cases and racial profiling. After the election, CAIR trumpeted the role of Muslim–Americans in the Republican victory. According to an informal survey of the group’s membership, 72 percent of Florida Muslims had cast their votes for Bush.”

What could account for the shift? Throughout the last 10-years, anti-Muslim sentiment among the right wing and the Republican Party has proliferated significantly. In the background is a vast and well-funded Islamophobia network providing the anti-Islam intellectual framework that trickles its way to mainstream right-wing politicians, as documented in a CAP report last year titled “Fear, Inc,“:

[T]his core group of deeply intertwined individuals and organizations manufacture and exaggerate threats of “creeping Sharia,” Islamic domination of the West, and purported obligatory calls to violence against all non-Muslims by the Quran.

This network of hate is not a new presence in the United States. Indeed, its ability to organize, coordinate, and disseminate its ideology through grassroots organizations increased dramatically over the past 10 years. Furthermore, its ability to influence politicians’ talking points and wedge issues for the upcoming 2012 elections has mainstreamed what was once considered fringe, extremist rhetoric.

There are many examples of the Islamophobia network’s influence on mainstream American politics. For example, in 2007, Mitt Romney said that he would not select a Muslim to serve in his Presidential cabinet (a statement he later denied). Four years later, in 2011, Rep. Peter King (R-NY) held an over-the-top congressional hearing about the “Radicalization of American Muslims.” At the state level, over the past two years Republican-controlled legislatures in several states including Kansas and Oklahoma tried to legislate Islamophobia, passing bans on Sharia law.

Politicians like Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) have taken things further: Bachmann recently led an anti-Muslim witch-hunt alleging that the Muslim Brotherhood had made a “deep penetration in the halls of our United States government.” Bachmann went on to claim that a top Hillary Clinton aide had ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. Joe Walsh, a Republican congressman from Illinois, said earlier this year that: “there is a radical strain of Islam in this country — it’s not just over there — trying to kill Americans every week.”

However, it’s important to note that not all Republicans have gone King and Bachmann’s route. “This Sharia law business is crap,” GOP New Jersey Governor Chris Christie has said. “It’s just crazy. And I’m tired of dealing with the crazies.” In August, Christie referred to Islamophobic conservatives as “bigots.” “I’ll tell you that there is a gaze of intolerance that is going around our country that is disturbing to me,” he said.

Last night on his Comedy Central show, Steven Colbert mocked Rep. Michele Bachmann’s (R-MN) anti-Muslm charges that the U.S government is supposedly being infiltrated by the Muslim Brotherhood. “I admire” Bachmann’s campaign, Colbert said, adding, “Exhibit A: Did you know that the congressional cafeteria serves crescent rolls? That is nothing more than warm buttery jihad.” Colbert then ridiculed Newt Gingrich for praising McCarthyism to defend his support of Bachmann:

COLBERT: Yes it takes a brave man to randomly accuse someone of something horrible based on no evidence and then demand they refute the evidence that you don’t have. So tonight, I am accusing Newt Gingrich of being a baby eating werewolf.

Watch the clip:

Colbert also interviewed Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN), who has led the charge in Congress against Bachmann’s baseless witch-hunt. Ellison confirmed to Colbert that he is Muslim and has siblings. “So you are literally a Muslim brother,” Colbert joked, “You realize I just caught you. I caught you in a lie.” Watch the interview here:

Mitt Romney held a meeting Thursday with a group of right-wing activists that included several leaders who have been vocal supporters of Rep. Michele Bachmann’s (R-MN) Islamophobic witch hunt, deepening his association with right-wing, anti-Muslim sentiment.

One of the guests at Thursday’s event was Vice President of the Family Research Council Jerry Boykin, who has a long history of Islamophobia, and once said that Islam “should not be protected under the First Amendment.” Most recently, Boykin piled on to Bachmann’s baseless indictment that top Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin is part of a Muslim Brotherhood plot. “I believe in some aspects of this situation there is support for the infiltration of the Muslim Brotherhood into our government, that sounds extremist but it is just a fact, it’s a reality,” he said.

Two others in attendance at Thursday’s event — American Values president Gary Bauer and Focus on the Family founder James Dobson — penned a letter to House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) defending Bachmann’s witch hunt. In that letter, they argued there is legitimate concern about “senior federal officials or branches of the federal government could be animated or influenced by groups affiliated with, or a philosophy grounded in, radical Islam.”

Boehner ended up rebuking Bachmann and her Islamophobic effort — which is more than Romney has done. The presidential candidate has refused to condemn Bachmann saying, “I’m not going to tell other people what things to talk about.”

Mitt Romney refused to condemn Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) and four other Republicans who have alleged that Huma Abedin, a top aide to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, is part of a Muslim Brotherhood campaign to infiltrate the American government. During an event in Reno, Nevada Romney dodged a question about the allegations, saying simply, “I’m not going to tell other people what things to talk about. Those are not things that are part of my campaign.” A growing number of Republicans, including House Speaker John Beohner (R-OH) and Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) have condemned Bachmann. Watch Romney’s remarks:

This isn’t the first time the former Massachusetts candidate has failed to speak out against extremists in his own party. Romney refused to directly repudiate Donald Trump’s claims that President Obama was born in Kenya just hours before he is scheduled to appear with the reality T.V. star for a fund raiser in Las Vegas, NV. He also wouldn’t decry Rush Limbaugh for calling Sandra Fluke a “slut” or speak out against social conservatives who opposed his decision to hire an openly-gay national security spokesperson.

Romney’s foreign policy adviser John Bolton, however, has defended Bachmann’s call for the government to investigate the alleged Muslim Brotherhood plot.

During a speech today at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace marking the release of a report about religious freedom around the world, Secretary of State HIllary Clinton took a moment to deal with religious freedom a little closer to home. Specifically, she touched obliquely on accusations made about a top staffer in her office by Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN).

In a letter to the State Department demanding an investigation into alleged Muslim Brotherhood infiltration, Bachmann suggested Clinton aide Huma Abedin is tied to Muslim Bortherhood and exercising influence on what Bachmann said were “actions recently that have been enormously favorable to the Muslim Brotherhood and its interests.”

In a thinly veiled reference, Clinton lauded those Republicans who stood up to Bachmann’s bogus and Islamophobic allegations:

Leaders have to be active in stepping in and sending messages about protecting the diversity within their countries. … We did see some of that in our own country. We saw Republicans stepping up and standing up against the kind of assaults that really have no place in our politics.

Watch the clip:

Among those Republicans were Sen. John McCain (AZ), Sen. Scott Brown (MA), Sen. Marco Rubio (FL), House Speaker John Boehner (OH) and Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (WI). The Republican Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee Rep. Mike Rogers (MI) went from supporting Bachmann, who sits on his committee, to disavowing her witch-hunt. Sensenbrenner, in particular, called out Bachmann’s Islamophobic allegations as “wrong ” and an affront on religious liberty:

Religion is a personal issue to every one of the people who lives in the United States, whether you practice a faith, how you practice a faith, whether you don’t practice a faith, whether you say you’re a member of a faith but don’t practice it, it’s none of the government’s business. And this is the whole issue of religious freedom.

However, some Republicans have come out and supported Bachmann’s allegations. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) also defended Bachmann’s charges. An adviser to GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney, John Bolton, voiced support for Bachmann’s allegations on a radio show hosted by the progenitor of her conspiracy theories, notorious Islamophobe Frank Gaffney. Former presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich, who also acts a as a surrogate for Romney, defended Bachmann, too, even writing a long Politico opinion piece today.