DEARBORN, Mich. — Arab American leaders have been warning Vice President Kamala Harris for months that she must step back from President Joe Biden’s support for Israel in the Gaza war or face significant He warned that he would have to face electoral backlash from influential communities in battleground states.
However, these pleas were largely ignored.
Instead, Ms. Harris made a strategic mistake that deeply insulted Arab American voters, who are reeling from the deep sadness that accompanies the rising death toll in the Middle East. She refused to welcome Palestinian Americans to the stage at the Democratic National Convention. She bluntly shut down protesters at a campaign rally who criticized her solidarity with Biden over the conflict. She sent a pro-Israel surrogate mother to Michigan.
Now, many Arab-American residents of Dearborn “feel like they’ve been saved,” said Dearborn City Council President Michael Sareini. “They did it because they wanted to send a message.”
“This attitude towards endless wars and the killing of innocent women and children must end,” he said.
In the early days after the election, while Democrats despaired of the outcome, Dearborn residents were He said he was not surprised by President-elect Donald Trump’s landslide victory. In addition to feeling vindicated, their protest vote was not limited to Arab Americans, who make up a small portion of the U.S. population. Their anger at the Biden administration over Gaza spread to college campuses across the country and among progressives of all ages, making it the largest anti-war protest in a generation.
“As we dealt with that grief, we became much more politically mature,” said Amer Zaar, a Palestinian-American activist.
Mr. Trump won the most votes in Dearborn, with 42% of the vote, and Ms. Harris won 36%, according to unofficial results, which is a 33 percentage point increase from Mr. Biden’s win in Dearborn in 2020. decreased. Green Party candidate Jill Stein garnered 18%.
Zoom in on Arab-American neighborhoods and you’ll see an even more dramatic fallout for the vice president. Mr. Trump appeared in large numbers throughout east and south Dearborn, where the community is concentrated. In one of those precincts, Ms. Harris received just 13% of the vote, while Mr. Trump received 51%.
Several Dearborn leaders said President Trump’s social conservatism and isolationist “America First” foreign policy led Arabs to support the Republican Party after the community fled the Republican Party in the aftermath of 9/11. He said that he no longer felt any resistance to doing so. And for a nation that often feels targeted by the justice system, many are aware of President Trump’s legal problems.
But these leaders said the dramatic move toward Mr. Trump does not signal a permanent realignment of this demographic, which has historically been part of the Democratic base, with the Republican Party, but rather with Mr. Biden. He emphasized that this was a clear rejection by Harris. The top vote-getter was an exception. Democrats carried Dearborn at every other level on the ballot, from Rep. Rashida Tlaib to state legislators and education commissioners.
“They didn’t vote for Trump because they believe he is the best candidate,” said Osama Shiblani, publisher of Arab American News. “No, they voted for Trump because they want to punish the Democratic Party and Harris.”
“I’m talking now.”
Arab Americans had high hopes when Harris replaced Biden as the Democratic nominee in July. She had shown signs of a softer stance on the Middle East, and Dearborn residents were optimistic that she might be the president to stand up to Israel. By that point, the war in Gaza had been going on for nine months. And despite pleas from local residents to end the bombing, which Gaza health officials say has killed more than 40,000 Palestinians, Biden has repeatedly rejected an arms embargo on Israel.
But a few weeks later, Dearborn residents began to grow dissatisfied when Palestinian Americans were denied speaking slots at the DNC convention. That outrage was further heightened in August when Harris told pro-Palestinian protesters, “I’m talking right now,” but Arab Americans are now saying the line is too much for Harris to get over. says it is a difficult time.
As the death toll rose in the Middle East and images of corpses were widely shared on social media, Arab communities felt further pushed aside by the Biden administration. It started to feel like a betrayal from Harris herself, they said.
Arab-American anger at the U.S. response reached a peak in October when Israel launched a ground invasion of Lebanon, claiming it was in response to a military attack by Hezbollah.
Abed Hammoud, founder of the Arab American Political Action Committee, said opposition to Harris “slowly but surely grew” as the war continued. The majority of Dearborn’s population comes from southern Lebanon, which was destroyed by military action. Some Michigan residents have witnessed their entire families being murdered overseas.
“I wake up in the morning and turn on the news just to see which villages have been destroyed and who has been killed,” said Wayne County Commissioner Sam Beydoun, who immigrated to the United States from Lebanon when he was 15. he said. That’s our daily life here in Michigan. ”
In the final weeks of the campaign, the Harris campaign sent surrogates to Michigan, but they deeply hurt the Arab community. Bill Clinton said at a rally in late October that the Israelis were “the first” to come to the Holy Land. Residents also complained about the appearance of New York State Representative Ritchie Torres, an ardent supporter of Israel.
In addition to the insults, the campaign touted support for former Vice President Dick Cheney, the mastermind behind the Iraq war. Part of Harris’ closing message also featured her daughter Liz Cheney, the former No. 3 Republican in the House of Representatives and a harsh critic of President Trump.
At that point, Harris’ repeated statements about wanting to end the war in Gaza and return the hostages felt hollow to this community. She has lost them.
Breakthrough for President Trump
The Trump campaign seized on the Arab community’s disdain for Harris, which had waned in the weeks before the election, as an opportunity. Ali Jawad, founder of the Lebanese American Heritage Club, said residents were inundated with anti-Harris messages and mailings, which “made a huge impact” among voters.
And President Trump visited Dearborn four days before the election. Standing in a restaurant surrounded by a crowd of Arab Americans, he said that under his presidency, “There will be peace in the Middle East, but not peace with the clowns who are currently running America.” he declared.
Harris never personally visited Dearborn. Instead, campaign staff and agents stepped in to replace her.
“This is what the Democrats did,” Saar said. “They’ve created a situation where Donald Trump is walking around our streets, putting his feet up, shaking hands, kissing babies, and Harris won’t even come into our communities. She was scared.”
Dearborn’s Arabs were united in their suffering, but deeply divided over how to express it politically. Factions arose. The conversation between them became tense. Major PACs representing Arab American interests not only refused to endorse the president, but also urged residents not to vote for Harris or Trump. Some residents have decided not to vote in the presidential election altogether.
Opinions were divided among the region’s mayors. Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud emerged as a strong ally of the Michigan-born No Commitment movement, which fueled anti-war sentiment on college campuses. Election results revealed that several liberal college clusters appear to be at least a point underperforming on the Democratic ticket.
Hammoud refused to meet with Trump during his visit to Dearborn, saying he disagreed with the former president’s ban on Muslims and arming Saudi Arabia. But he also declined to endorse Harris.
Mayors in Dearborn Heights and Hamtramck, two neighboring cities with similar Arab populations, stumbled in supporting Trump across Michigan. Dearborn Heights Mayor Bill Bazzi also appeared at President Trump’s final campaign rally in Grand Rapids hours before Election Day.
But Trump’s record, including a ban on Muslims and his promise to deport millions of immigrants, made “I held my nose and voted for her,” said political organizer Ismael. Like Mr. Ahmed, it was enough to dispel concerns about Mr. Harris.
But in the end, Mr. Trump “was able to say some things that made me think maybe he was really on our side,” Mr. Ahmed said. “Or he might rebuild the economy in a way that no one else did. And it worked.”
