Michigan voters have an outsized impact on who will win the White House, and which party will carry the House and Senate in 2024. In this series, Great Stakes: The fight to be hailed as victors in Michigan, the Washington Examiner will look at the thorny politics and unique issues that will swing the critical battleground state. Part One, below, examines the Arab American and Muslim voter effort to protest President Joe Biden’s re-election over his Israel policy.
DEARBORN, Michigan — Michigan‘s Democratic presidential primary this week will underscore the political repercussions of the Israel-Hamas war for President Joe Biden before November’s general election.
More than four months since Hamas slaughtered more than a thousand Israelis and took hundreds more hostage on Oct. 7, Israel’s pledge to rid the world of the terrorist organization has divided the international community and the Democratic Party, with supporters of Palestinians in Michigan, a battleground state, promising not to vote for Biden in Tuesday’s primary or to mark themselves as “uncommitted” in protest of his response to the war.
Michigan’s Arab and Muslim Americans are “really energized” politically right now, according to Dawud Walid, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations’s Michigan chapter, cognizant that they could “decide who is the next president of the United States of America.”
“Michigan is an important swing state and, overall, a majority of Michigan Muslims are arguably disgusted with the Biden administration’s not only mishandling of the war on Gaza but the active arming with weapons of the Israeli military that is committing war crimes and in front of the International Criminal Court of Justice as we speak,” Walid said.
“I will sum it up with what one Palestinian American told me in our community, he said, anything short of Mr. Biden performing a miracle like Jesus and resurrecting 29,000 dead Palestinian women and children, he’s not voting for him under any circumstances. … I think that’s the majority view of the community at this point,” he added.
Biden’s support of Israel after Hamas’s Oct. 7 terrorist attack has prompted pro-Palestinian demonstrations nationwide, mostly spearheaded by young Americans, disrupting his appearances at former first lady Rosalynn Carter’s memorial service, a political speech at the site of the 2015 Charleston church shooting, and other events. The “uncommitted” campaign, endorsed by Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud (D-MI), and even 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke, is the most serious challenge to Biden’s leadership this primary cycle after special counsel Robert Hur’s report raised concerns about his age and memory.
Sameh Elhady, vice chairman of the Michigan Democratic Party’s Arab American Caucus, reiterated the communities’s grief and belief that Biden will be the 2024 presidential nominee.
“But I hope that the lower percentage of his success will send him a strong message,” Elhady said. “Michigan is a battle state, and he won Michigan back in 2020 with only 150,000 votes. If you consider the Arab American population, which is 350,000 and averaging among half a million Muslims in Michigan, you are in a battle state, and you could lose it.”
In contrast, Michigan’s Jewish community, while similarly dynamic, is smaller, with estimates of 90,000 people.
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D-MI), a Biden campaign surrogate, said she’s “not sure” how her state’s primary will turn out for Biden, noting the “differences of opinion” in the “robust” Arab, Muslim, Palestinian, and Jewish communities in her state.
“I just want to make the case, though, that it’s important not to lose sight of the fact that any vote that’s not cast for Joe Biden supports a second Trump term,” Whitmer said on CNN Sunday of GOP presidential front-runner Donald Trump. “A second Trump term would be devastating, not just on fundamental rights, not just on our democracy here at home, but also when it comes to foreign policy.”
Biden was not “beloved” by Arab and Muslim Americans before the Israel-Hamas war, per Walid, because of, for example, his policies regarding Saudi Arabia and Yemen. Community leaders recently boycotted a meeting with Biden’s campaign, advocating instead to sit down with administration officials, including White House deputy national security adviser Jon Finer.
“Those are just some issues besides some of the economic concerns and the general mental fitness of Mr. Biden,” Walid said. “What is fascinating about our government at this time and the Biden administration is that, in dealing with any other country, if we’re giving them billions of dollars of money in aid, if they violate our values, then we would say that we’re going cut off the aid. But when it comes to Israel, Mr. Biden is so weak that he can say that [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu administration’s] is going too far, and Netanyahu can completely ignore him.”
“No one is saying that Hamas did the right thing on Oct. 7. No one’s saying that,” Elhady added. “Protecting civilians from both sides, it’s important.”
In an interview, Dearborn Democratic state Rep. Erin Byrnes described Israel’s post-Oct. 7 military operations in Gaza as a “genocide” and called for an “immediate and lasting ceasefire.” She also asked for Biden to be “more forthcoming” about his and his administration’s “diplomatic measures” and “plan to support and uplift the Palestinian people.”
For Wayne University political science professor Ronald Brown, Tuesday’s “uncommitted” campaign, a combination of the “Listen to Michigan” and “Abandon Biden” endeavors, could be a “canary in the coal mine” for Biden before the general election.
“That could be a pretty good predictor of what might happen in November,” Brown said, particularly considering the “quite high” number of absentee ballot applications. “If there’s a low number of Democrats who vote uncommitted, well, they also [might] not show up and vote. So I think I would just take a look at that and see how high that percentage is.”
As for expectations for the “uncommitted” campaign, Walid emphasized the demographic and historical differences between Michigan and New Hampshire after the Granite State’s “ceasefire” write-in counterpart underperformed during last month’s primary. Former President Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign received 40% of the vote through an “uncommitted” bid against then-candidate Hillary Clinton after he did not qualify for Michigan’s ballot.
Both Walid and Elhady hope to dispel the Biden campaign’s assumption that Arab and Muslim Americans will support Biden in the general election compared to Trump, though Elhady, a once proud Democrat voting “uncommitted” on Tuesday, remains undecided about what to do in November. Walid does not intend to back Biden in eight months.
“This is a very dangerous gambling and overconfidence,” Elhady said, adamant the communities are “not scared of Trump” because they can undermine his “authoritarian style.” “This is what’s going to, unfortunately, could be one of the reasons if Biden loses the upcoming election. And this is, unfortunately, history repeating itself. Back in 2016, between Hillary Clinton and Trump, the same way, the overconfidence, and Hillary Clinton lost because 1% only of the Democrats did not go to vote because they don’t like her.”
The Biden campaign, which declined to comment directly on the “uncommitted” effort, did not schedule a presidential campaign visit in Michigan the weekend before voters head to the polls.
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A Biden campaign spokeswoman, however, claimed in a statement: “The president is working hard to earn every vote in Michigan,” pointing to Biden’s record on bringing green energy and infrastructure union jobs to Michigan, walking the picket line with the UAW last year, supporting abortion access, and lowering black unemployment.
“And, he is working tirelessly to create a just, lasting peace in the Middle East,” the statement said.
