DETROIT — Outrage over the war in Gaza has given former President Donald Trump an opening in Michigan as some Arab and Muslim voters vow to “punish” Vice President Kamala Harris at the ballot box.
The “uncommitted” movement, which mobilized 100,000 Michigan voters to protest U.S. foreign policy in the conflict, has splintered since the Democratic primary in February, often to the benefit of Harris. She has made inroads with elected officials and some religious leaders demanding a ceasefire in Gaza.
Still, there remains a vocal element within the Democratic Party that cannot bring itself to vote for Harris despite outreach to Muslim and Arab voters by her campaign. She has adopted the same posture of support for Israel as President Joe Biden, leading some to weigh a vote for Green Party candidate Jill Stein, who received the endorsement of the “Abandon Harris” campaign on Monday.
A sizable share is even considering Trump despite his decidedly pro-Israel stance.
“It’s no longer about picking the lesser evil,” said Nasser Beydoun, a community leader in the Arab-majority city of Dearborn. “It’s about punishing the evil we know.”
The resistance could swing the presidential race in Michigan, home to more than 200,000 Arab and Muslim Americans. Trump lost the state by 154,000 votes in 2020, while his winning margin in 2016 was 10,000 votes.
The prospect of Trump returning to the White House has moved influential Democrats off the sidelines.
“We cannot afford to sit on a nonexistent fence,” said Detroit Councilwoman Mary Waters, an “uncommitted” voter who is now supporting Harris. “I mean, this is decision time. So, you choose.”
Yet she described unfruitful conversations with dug-in voters who disregard the fact that Trump has a friendly relationship with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has waged a casualty-heavy campaign in Gaza and now Lebanon.
“They’re not buying it,” Waters said. “They cannot get there. Most of them cannot get there” to support Harris.
For some, a vote against Harris is about sending a message. For others, it’s about relatives lost in the conflict. Earlier this month, an American from Dearborn was killed in Lebanon as Israel, responding to rocket attacks from Hezbollah, expands its airstrikes in the country.
“You know, these people are watching their blood relatives just be killed and go hungry and get sick and die,” said Mikhail Stewart Siddique, an imam at the Muslim Center of Detroit who is backing Harris.
“I mean, it’s just morbid and it’s traumatizing,” he added. “So, as a result of that, people are angry. Some people are just saying we want to punish Joe Biden.”
Beydoun, the former chairman of the Arab American Civil Rights League, is still deciding between Stein and Trump. He called Stein the ideal candidate given her outspokenness on the war, but he views the vote as a throwaway given she polls at 1% nationally.
Asked about his openness to Trump, Beydoun painted a more complicated picture of his foreign policy views.
As president, Trump had an antagonistic relationship with the Arab community, campaigning in 2016 on banning Muslims from entering the country. But he has promised Muslim leaders he would end the war in Gaza quickly, drawing on his reputation as a peacetime president. His campaign’s outreach includes reminders of the low inflation while he was in office.
“You know, Donald Trump is pro-Israel, but Donald Trump is also transactional,” Beydoun said. “He’s not a committed Zionist like Joe Biden. I think that Donald Trump has the capacity to tell Netanyahu to stand down where Joe Biden does not.”
Beydoun is far from alone. Trump leads Harris 46% to 42% among likely voters within the Arab community, according to national polling from the Arab American Institute released last week. Harris’s support is a full 18 points behind Biden’s vote share in 2020.
Meanwhile, a separate survey shows Stein with almost 30% support among Muslim Americans nationally.
Harris has attempted to soften that resistance in Michigan. During a trip to Flint on Friday, she held a listening session with Muslim and Arab leaders in which she promised to continue Biden’s ceasefire negotiations as president.
But she is competing with the Trump campaign’s unprecedented outreach to those very same voters. Last month, the former president won the endorsement of Amer Ghalib, the mayor of Muslim-majority Hamtramck, prompting three city councilmen to announce a counter-endorsement for Harris on Sunday.
Harris has hinted that she would take a harder line on Israel if elected. Siddique noted that she came out in support of a ceasefire weeks before Biden.
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But she has declined to endorse steps, including an embargo on offensive weaponry, that may alienate the Jewish vote in Michigan and beyond as dozens of Israeli and American hostages remain in the hands of Hamas one year after the Oct. 7, 2023, invasion.
“They feel like she’s already chosen a side, and it wasn’t theirs,” Waters said of the “Abandon Harris” vote.
