Michigan and Georgia Arab American voters sour on Harris

Vice President Harris is facing growing signs that Arab American and Muslim voters are souring on her in the key battlegrounds of Michigan and Georgia as anger rises over the expanding conflict in the Middle East.

A poll from the Arab American Institute showed former President Trump leading Harris with those voters by 4 points nationally, amid criticism of the Biden administration’s handling of Israel’s wars against Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas and in Gaza.

The survey comes as Trump and third-party candidates such as Jill Stein have stepped up outreach to the more than 200,000 Arab American and Muslim voters in Michigan, one of seven key battlegrounds that could determine who wins the White House. 

Meanwhile, in Georgia, leaders have begun sounding the alarm that the more than 150,000 Arab American and Muslim voters there might not turn out in a state President Biden won by fewer than 12,000 votes in 2020.

“There’s double trouble that has to be addressed, both the ongoing situation in Gaza but also the now new circumstance created in Lebanon,” said Jim Zogby, the founding director of the Arab American Institute and a former adviser to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). “I don’t know where Harris’s majority comes from if you’re losing a percentage of nonwhite voters, a percentage of young voters and a significant percentage of Arab American voters. I don’t know where you get the rest from.” 

According to David Dulio, a political science professor at Michigan’s Oakland University, Arab Americans and Muslims have been “critical” to the Democratic coalition built in the state. 

“Even a small shift in the support in the community could have an incredibly large impact on the final outcome,” Dulio said. “It’s a small portion of the coalition, but it’s a critical one.”

As Israel expands the conflict into Lebanon, Democrats in Michigan are sounding the alarm bell. 

“I’m not sure people realize how much of an added dimension this brings here,” former House Rep. Andy Levin (D-Mich.) said, referring to Israel’s new war front. “Lebanese Americans are like the grandaddies of the Arab American community in Michigan.” 

Since the Oct. 7 attacks, Arab American support for Democrats has cratered. In the first survey by the Arab American Institute after Hamas’s incursion, Biden registered 17 percent support with the community. 

The National Uncommitted Movement launched a campaign for voters to cast uncommitted ballots during the primary, and close to 1 million Democrats did so. 

The National Uncommitted Movement recently declined to endorse Harris, but many of its leaders have come together with other Arab American leaders to form Arab Americans for Harris-Walz. 

While Harris has more than doubled Democratic support among Arab Americans and Muslims, she is still far behind the 60 percent of the community that voted for Biden in 2020. Democrats have historically enjoyed a 2-to-1 advantage among Arab American and Muslim voters. 

Harris has worked to regain the Democrats’ footing within the community, creating the first Arab American outreach position in a presidential campaign. 

But members of the party campaigning alongside Harris’s Arab outreach liaison say they have had a difficult time connecting with voters.  

“She’s very good, but she’s been having a hell of a time,” Zogby said. “I’ve been going to a couple of things with her, and it’s not been pretty.” 

Harris also spoke with leaders of the National Uncommitted Movement in August. That same month, her campaign manager also met with Arab and Muslim leaders. 

This week, Walz spoke at the Emgage Action “Million Muslim Votes” event, while Harris met with Arab leaders before speaking in Detroit. 

“The Vice President is committed to work to earn every vote, unite our country, and to be a President for all Americans,” a Harris spokesperson told The Hill in a statement. “Throughout her career, Vice President Harris has been steadfast in her support of our country’s diverse Muslim community, ensuring first and foremost that they can live free from the hateful policies of the Trump administration.”

However, some members of the community have dismissed her efforts, saying they are not genuine. 

“They have a role for Arab American outreach director for the campaign, but they don’t have a role like that for the actual administration,” Soujoud Hamade, president of the Michigan chapter of the Arab American Bar Association, told The Hill. 

“Most of us know better at this point than to believe their lies anymore, because they’ll come and feed us a bunch of lies so that we vote for them,” added Hamade, who plans on voting for Stein. 

Others acknowledge Harris’s efforts but add that it is not enough to win over Arab American and Muslim voters angry with the U.S. support for the Israeli government. 

“The liaisons are doing their best, but they are not decisionmakers. But the concern right now is that decisionmakers are not engaging with the community directly,” said Georgia State Rep. Ruwa Romman (D). 

“Her team has been doing the outreach, and it’s been night and day compared to the Biden campaign,” Romman added. “But, if you’re a person who wants the bombs to stop and the candidate says, ‘Yes, I intend to stop the bombs,’ and that doesn’t happen, it makes you lose hope.” 

The National Uncommitted Movement floated Romman as a potential Palestinian speaker at the Democratic National Convention. In the end, the event did not feature a Palestinian speaker on the main stage. 

While Harris tries to rebuild her party’s relationship with the community, Trump and Stein have capitalized on their anger in an effort to make inroads. 

Trump has been airing ads in Arab American communities in Michigan, and his former director of national intelligence, Richard Grenell, and Tiffany Trump’s father-in-law, Massad Boulos, a Lebanese American businessman, have been leading his outreach to the community.

Their efforts appear to be succeeding with at least a part of the community. 

“His level of outreach has been constant and recurring, and the fact that there’s been this outreach placing value and worth in our community and saying that we deserve a seat at the table, which hasn’t happened from the other side,” Samraa Luqman, a Michigan activist who wrote in Bernie Sanders for president in 2020 but has now endorsed Trump, told The Hill. 

Luqman added that Trump had personally committed to resolving the conflict in meetings with her and other Arab and Muslim voters in Michigan. Luqman also believes Trump’s “personality quirks” might lead to a quicker resolution of the conflict compared to the current efforts led by Biden. 

“My aim is to punish Democrats for their support of genocide,” she added. “You cannot expect any change in policies or in the Democrats unless you actually punish them.” 

According to Luqman, many members of her community are “afraid to voice their support publicly right now.” 

Romman said Harris’s “inability to distinguish herself from Biden on this issue” has also made it easier for third-party candidates such as Stein to make “headway into the community.” 

Polls have shown Stein registering anywhere from 12 percent to more than 30 percent of Arab American support.

Democratic National Committee Chair Jaime Harrison dismissed some of these polls, saying “it’s hard for [him] to believe” the latest numbers.

“We know that Kamala Harris sees Arab Americans and understands that they need to have a seat at the table, that they need to be respected,” he added.