Maybe. Sort of. Or not.

A new monthly tracking poll from the Arab American Institute will track Arab-American public opinion in four battleground states with large Arab populations: Ohio, Florida, Michigan and Pennsylvania. Many of Ohio's Arab-Americans are clustered around Cleveland, Toledo and Akron, but about 6 percent live in Hamilton County, according to census data.

The first poll of 501 Arab-Americans, released earlier this month, showed Bush was immensely unpopular with most Arab-Americans. The polls showed Democrat John Kerry trouncing Bush among Arab-Americans in Michigan, Florida, and Pennsylvania - where his margin was 73 percent to 20 percent.

Yet in Ohio, Bush led Kerry 50 percent to 34 percent.

In a state as important as Ohio, where every vote will be fought for, that could be important come November.

"That actually doesn't make too much sense," said Bobby Baadani, 28, a Clifton salesman and Yemen native who is active in the local Arab-American community. "Most Arab-Americans oppose Bush."

Baadani, whose brother Jamal is a U.S. Marine, said he is more supportive of Bush than most Arab-Americans, who dislike Bush "because of the whole Iraq thing, the Arab-Israeli conflict." But he found the poll results odd.

He wasn't the only one. The president of the Arab American Institute, James Zogby, said he, too, was puzzled about the Ohio anomaly.

His explanation: The sample was just too small, rendering the numbers almost meaningless.

"I actually wasn't even sure whether I should put that in. The sample was small: It was 80 people," he said. That makes the margin of error on the Ohio numbers plus or minus 12 percentage points.

Instead of Bush leading Kerry 50 percent to 34 percent, that means "it could be 42 Kerry, 28 Bush," Zogby said.

THIS WEEK IN CONGRESS: The Senate this week will take up Sen. Mike DeWine's Unborn Victims of Violence Act, which would make it a crime to harm a fetus during the commission of a federal crime.

"It is just plain wrong that federal law does absolutely nothing to recognize that violent acts against unborn children are a crime. We are going to close this glaring loophole in our federal criminal code once and for all."

Abortion-rights groups say it is aimed at undermining abortion rights by giving fetuses the same rights as everyone else.

The same bill, introduced by Republicans Steve Chabot of Westwood and Melissa Hart of Pennsylvania, passed the House in February.

President Bush has promised to sign it.

THEY SAID IT: "President Bush went out touting his economic record in Ohio last week.

Now this is a state that lost 225,000 jobs since Bush took office.

You know, if Bush wants to tout his record, he should do it somewhere where the Bush economy has actually created jobs, like India, or Thailand or China." - Jay Leno.

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E-mail cweiser@gannett.com or call (202) 906-8134.