Muslim voters could prove crucial in close White House race
20/9/2024 6:07
Some Arab American and
Muslim voters angry at U.S. support for Israel's offensive in
Gaza are shunning Democrat Kamala Harris in the presidential
race to back third-party candidate Jill Stein in numbers that
could deny Harris victories in battleground states that will
decide the Nov. 5 election.
A late August poll conducted by the Council on
American-Islamic Relations advocacy group showed that in
Michigan, home to a large Arab American community, 40% of Muslim
voters backed the Green Party's Stein. Republican candidate
Donald Trump got 18%, with Harris, who is President Joe Biden's
vice president, trailing at 12%.
The poll, conducted by text message more than two weeks
before the Harris-Trump Sept. 10 debate, showed Harris leading
Trump 29.4% to 11.2%, with 34% favoring third-party candidates
including Stein at 29.1%.
Harris was the leading pick of Muslim voters in Georgia and
Pennsylvania, while Trump prevailed in Nevada with 27%, just
ahead of Harris' 26%, according to the CAIR poll of 1,155 Muslim
voters nationwide. All are battleground states that have swung
on narrow margins in recent elections.
The Green Party is on most state ballots, including all
battleground states that could decide the election, except for
Georgia and Nevada, where the party is suing to be included.
Stein also leads Harris among Muslims in Arizona and
Wisconsin, battleground states with sizable Muslim populations
where Biden defeated Trump in 2020 by slim margins.
Biden won the 2020 Muslim vote, credited in various exit
polls with from 64% to 84% of their support, but Muslim backing
of Democrats has fallen sharply since Israel's nearly year-long
action in Gaza.
The Uncommitted National Movement said on Thursday it would
not back Harris even though it opposes Trump and won't recommend
a third-party vote. It said Trump would accelerate the killing
in Gaza if reelected but Harris had not responded to its request
she meet with Palestinian Americans who lost loved ones in Gaza
and had not agreed to discuss halting arms shipments to Israel.
The Harris campaign had no immediate comment on the
announcement. The campaign earlier declined to comment on the
shifting dynamics; officials tasked with Muslim outreach were
not available for interviews.
The Uncommitted movement rallied over 750,000 voters to
cast uncommitted ballots in the Democratic nominating contests
early this year to protest Biden's policy in support of Israel's
war. Biden left the race in July and endorsed Harris, who then
launched her campaign.
Harris has gone further than other Biden administration
officials to voice sympathy with the Palestinians and has
forcefully criticized Israel’s conduct while adhering to Biden
administration policy, disappointing Arab American and Muslim
voters.
About 3.5 million Americans reported being of Middle
Eastern descent in the 2020 U.S. Census, the first year such
data was recorded. Although they make up about 1% of the total
U.S. population of 335 million, their voters may prove crucial
in a race that opinion polls show Harris and Trump neck and
neck.
On Tuesday, Harris called for an end to the Israel-Gaza
war and the return of hostages held by Hamas in Gaza. She also
said Israel must not reoccupy the Palestinian enclave and backed
a two-state solution.
But at closed-door meetings in Michigan and elsewhere,
Harris campaign officials have rebuffed appeals to halt or limit
U.S. arms shipments to Israel, community leaders say.
"Decades of community organizing and civic engagement and
mobilizing have not manifested into any benefit," said Faye
Nemer, founder of the Michigan-based MENA American Chamber of
Commerce to promote U.S. trade with the Middle East.
"We're part of the fabric of this country, but our concerns
are not taken into consideration," she said.
Stein is aggressively campaigning on Gaza, while Trump
representatives are meeting with Muslim groups and promising a
swifter peace than Harris can deliver.
Stein's 2016 run ended with just over 1% of the popular
vote, but some Democrats blamed her and the Green Party for
taking votes away from Democrat Hillary Clinton. Pollsters give
Stein no chance of winning in 2024.
But her support for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza, for an
immediate U.S. arms embargo on Israel and for student movements
to force universities to divest from weapons investments have
made her popular in pro-Palestinian circles. Her running mate
Butch Ware, a professor at the University of California, Santa
Barbara, is Muslim.
This month Stein spoke at ArabCon in Dearborn, Michigan,
an annual gathering of Arab Americans, and was featured on the
cover of The Arab American News under the headline "The Choice
2024." Last week in an interview with The Breakfast Club, a New
York radio program, she said, "Every vote cast for our campaign
is a vote against genocide," a charge that Israel denies.
TRUMP TEAM CAMPAIGNS FOR ARAB AMERICAN VOTES
At the same time, the Trump team has hosted dozens of
in-person and virtual events with Arab Americans and Muslims in
Michigan and Arizona, said Richard Grenell, Trump's former
acting Director of National Intelligence.
"Arab American leaders in Detroit know this is their moment
to send a powerful message to the Democrat party that they
shouldn’t be taken for granted," Grenell said. Trump has said he
would secure more Arab-Israeli peace deals.
Biden defeated Trump in 2020 by just thousands of votes in
some states, thanks in part to the support of Arab and Muslim
voters in states where they are concentrated, including Georgia,
Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
Biden won Michigan by 154,000 votes in 2020, but Trump
defeated Democrat Hillary Clinton there by fewer than 11,000
votes in 2016. The state is home to overlapping groups of more
than 200,000 registered voters who are Muslim and 300,000 who
report ancestry from the Middle East and North Africa.
In Philadelphia, which has a large Black Muslim population,
activists have joined a national "Abandon Harris" campaign. They
helped organize protests during her debate with Trump last week.
Philadelphia CAIR co-chair Rabiul Chowdhury said, "We have
options. If Trump pledges to end the war and bring home all
hostages, it's game over for Harris." Trump has said the war
would never have erupted if he were president. It's unclear how
he would end it. Trump is a firm supporter of Israel.
In Georgia, where Biden won in 2020 by 11,779 votes,
activists are rallying 12,000 voters to commit to withhold votes
from Harris unless the Biden administration acts by Oct. 10 to
halt all arms shipments to Israel, demands a permanent ceasefire
in Gaza and the West Bank, and pledges to uphold a U.S. law that
imposes an arms embargo on nations engaged in war crimes.
Thousands have already signed similar pledges in New Jersey,
Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
U.S. Representative Dan Kildee, a Michigan Democrat, said he
worries about the impact the Gaza war will have in November. He
said not only Arab Americans and Muslims, but also a much
broader group of younger voters and others are upset.
"You can't unring a bell," he said, adding Harris still had
"the space and grace" to shift gears, but he said time was
running out.
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