Muslim and Arab American voters may decide Michigan, a key state for Trump and Harris.
Michigan is home to over 500,000 Arab Americans, 2/5ths of whom are registered to vote
Michigan’s 15 electoral votes are up for grabs for a third consecutive election and could be decided by the 200,000 registered Arab American voters in the state, who are angry at the Biden administration’s handling of the war on Gaza, which UN experts say is a ‘mass ethnic cleansing.”
“I love this country, but I’ll tell you, we have never been so disappointed in this country as we are now,” said Nabih H. Ayad, chairman of the Arab American Civil Rights League. “We wanted to give the Democratic Party the opportunity to do something, and they haven’t. The one line we can’t cross is genocide.”
Some are abstaining from voting, advocating for a third party, or considering voting for former President Trump given his recent attempts to steward their vote in Dearborn, Michigan, which is home to the largest concentration of Arabs outside the Middle East, despite his anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian rhetoric in the past. Local experts say that Trump, who said he would let Israel ‘finish the job,’ is taking full advantage of this divide among Arab Americans and Muslims. A recent poll showed Harris is effectively tied with Trump among Arab Americans, leaving her nearly 20 points behind Biden’s numbers in 2020.
“People are really right now in a dilemma. They really don’t know where to go. It’s like somebody hit them with a two by four, right on their head,” said Osama Siblani, the publisher of an Arab American newspaper based in Dearborn, Michigan. “So now they’re in total disarray. They may vote for Donald Trump, just to punish Biden and Harris, just to say, ‘Look what you’ve done.’”
However, many Arab Americans and Muslims who are passionate Democrats blame Harris’s campaign outreach and messaging to voters like them for this polling shift. Some described her messaging as being “lackluster,” “disgraceful”, and the same as President Biden’s rhetoric. In fact, Harris has yet to campaign in Dearborn, Michigan, and appear on a campaign stage with an Arab American or Muslim leader, despite some institutes backing the vice president.
“I was like, ‘All right, you have a blank slate, let’s see what you’re going to do with that,’” said Rowan Imran, a Palestinian American who lives in Phoenix. “That was very disappointing to see her dig her heels further in the ground and just uphold every single [Biden] policy … It was very clear that we’re just getting a different face with the same policies.”
Notably, this shift came after the Democratic National Convention, where Democratic leaders refused to let a Palestinian, Arab, or Muslim American speak at the DNC about the war on Gaza, sparking a sit-in outside the convention and more anger toward the vice President.
“That was it for me,” said Ismail Ali, a long-time Democrat from Florida who changed his party affiliation to Independent. “If Democrats can give anti-choice Republicans a platform, billionaires who don’t pay their workers a platform, but they can’t have someone who looks like me? Who will talk about issues that matter to me? To humanity? I do not understand!”
By the numbers: More than half (55%) of Arab Americans would have been more likely to support Harris if the DNC allowed a Palestinian American speaker at the convention, per polling from the Arab American Institute.