By: Corey Siemaszko, New York Daily News

March 12: Voters in Alabama and Mississippi may still be split on which Republican they want in the White House, but they agree on this much — in their minds, President Obama is a Muslim.

A stunning 52% of Mississippi respondents to a survey done ahead of Tuesday’s presidential primary have bought into the false notion that Obama worships Allah, Public Policy Polling reported Monday. Some 36% said they weren’t sure.In Alabama, 45% responded in the affirmative when asked the same question and 41% said they weren’t sure, pollsters found.

Obama is a Christian. But many conservative Republicans just refuse to believe that despite ample evidence to the contrary, pollster Jim Williams said.

“I don’t have an explanation for that,” said Williams. “All I can say is that we have looked at that in other places in the past and it’s never really gone away. You’re dealing with an extremely conservative portion of the electorate in two extremely conservative states.”

Mississippi and Alabama are also deeply religious states that generally rank at or close to the bottom in most state education rankings. Sixty-six percent of Mississippians surveyed by PPP said they didn’t believe in evolution as did 60% of people in Alabama, the pollsters found.

And in these states, Rush Limbaugh is an admired figure, with 53% of those polled admitting to having a favorable opinion of the right wing rabblerouser. The figure was 51% in Mississippi.

The survey was done over the weekend as Limbaugh continued to be hit by criticism for calling a Georgetown University law student a “slut” on the air.

Given the conservatism of the GOP electorate in Alabama and Mississippi, candidates like Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum should be trouncing more moderate Mitt Romney, the GOP front runner.Both are far more popular that Romney. But Romney is benefitting from a split in the conservative vote.

PPP, a non-partisan outfit, surveyed 656 likely Republican voters in Mississippi and 600 likely Republican primary voters in Alabama.