Tired voters: After supporting Joe Biden in 2020, the majority-Arab American city Dearborn in Michigan delivered an unlikely win for Donald Trump, who promised to bring peace to the Middle East. — ©2024NYTC
AMEEN Almudhari was one of thousands of people in the majority-Arab community of Dearborn, Michigan, who helped Joe Biden win the city and defeat Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election.
Four years later, Almudhari had had enough.
Last week, he joined thousands of other Dearborn residents in voting for Trump, helping him score a stunning win in a place that seemed an unlikely source of support in the former president’s bid to return to the White House.
Standing next to his 10-year-old son outside an elementary school on the north side of Dearborn on Tuesday evening, Almudhari, 33, explained his change of heart, part of a remarkable turnabout in Dearborn, which is just outside Detroit.He was, he said, fed up with Biden’s support of Israel and Ukraine and said the death and destruction being underwritten by the United States drove his decision to back Trump.
“The first time we voted for Joe Biden, but what we see right now, he didn’t stop the genocide in Gaza,” said Almudhari, a Yemeni American, who faulted the president for spending US money to support the wars in the Gaza Strip and Ukraine.
His son, Khaled, interrupted him with a smiling comment: “Trump will end the war!”
Indeed, Trump has said as much, and the promise was among a host of reasons cited by voters in Dearborn for the wave of support from Arab and Muslim Americans for Trump.
Unofficial results released by the city of Dearborn on Wednesday show that Trump won 42% of the vote in Dearborn, compared with 36% for Harris and 18% for the Green Party candidate, Jill Stein.
In 2020, similar results released after the election showed that Biden had won almost 70% of votes by Dearborn residents.
An election night event hosted by the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee in Dearborn. — Photos: ©2024 New York Times Company
Harris, who became the Democratic nominee after Biden withdrew over the summer, was ultimately unable – or unwilling – to escape the shadow of the Biden administration’s decisions in the Middle East.
She sought to project more empathy for the plight of Palestinians caught in the conflict, which has killed more than 40,000 people in Gaza, and she tried to take a firmer tone with Israel, insisting in several speeches that the government of prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu needed to follow international law. It was not enough for many voters there.
Not making a clear break with Biden, even as she was vying for the White House, made Harris resoundingly unpopular in Dearborn.
Her campaign chose not to have her hold public rallies or meetings in the city, perhaps fearing that any such event would be greeted with protests.
Last week, the sentiments of Arab and Muslim Americans, especially in Dearborn, were heard through the ballot.
In interviews with the Times on Tuesday outside polling stations, voters backing Trump said they wanted to give him a chance to rein in wars across the world and bring peace to the Middle East.
Nadeen Alsoufi, 22, was one of the many Trump backers.
A first-time voter, she had immigrated from Yemen nearly a decade ago. “I really hope that what he meant is actually what he’s going to do if he wins president,” she said.
“That’s the only thing that literally pushed me to vote.”
Many voters brushed aside comments Trump has made that were critical of Muslims, and some of them cited his willingness to visit Dearborn and bring prominent local Muslim leaders onstage at a recent campaign rally as evidence of an olive branch.
Others in the city said that a bigger reason for their support was that they believed Trump was better on the economy. Concerns over incorporating LGBTQ+ issues in local schools’ curriculum came up among some voters as well.
Supporters cheer as Trump's speech is broadcast during an Arab Americans for Trump watch party at the Lava Java Cafe, a hookah lounge in Dearborn. — AP
Abdullah Hizam, 34, said that people had tried “to scare us from voting for Trump” by citing such things as Trump’s restrictions on migration from some Muslim-majority countries such as Yemen, where Hizam is from.
But that didn’t shake his support.
“It’s just the propaganda of the Democrats to kind of push that and scares us – ‘oh you’re not going to have any your family or relatives come here under his administration,” said Hizam, who backed Biden in 2020.
In the early hours of Wednesday at a pro-Trump election night party in a Dearborn hookah lounge, Bishara Bahbah felt a sense of relief.
A Palestinian American and founder of Arab Americans for Trump, he had visited the area regularly from his home in Arizona to help deliver for Trump the Arab American vote in Michigan.
Bahbah said his efforts were aided by Harris’ unwillingness to heed several community demands – including not having a Palestinian American speak at the Democratic National Convention and not calling for a partial arms embargo on Israel.
“She shot herself in the foot,” he said, theorising that Harris could have captured more Arab American voters had she staked out clear positions and had prominent meetings in the area like Trump did.
Trump supporters celebrating at an Arab Americans for Trump watch party at a hookah lounge in Dearborn. — AP
Earlier, across town at an election event held at a food hall, Ali Dagher, a Dearborn-based lawyer who supported Harris, looked uneasy as early results indicated that Trump was going to win.
He believed those who backed Trump or decided not to vote for Harris would come to regret their decisions.
Dagher, a Lebanese American, said he had urged Democrats to more forcefully make their positions clear on Gaza and to provide a road map for Arab Americans to support Harris.
“We wanted a plan.
“She presented no plan, and by failing to present a plan, our community perceived it as her lack of leadership and weakness,” he said.
“When Trump came in and said, ‘I will bring peace,’ they took his words literally and absorbed him.”
A congratulatory banner for Trump in Jerusalem. Some Arab-Americans voted for Trump because they think that he can end the war in the Middle East. Will they regret their decision? — AFP
Dagher, however, said that Arab and Muslim Americans who backed Trump were part of what turned out to be a broad array of voters deeply unhappy with Biden and unwilling to elect his vice president to succeed him.
“I’m disappointed that people acted in anger, but I understand. I’m not blaming my community for what they did,” he said.
“My community acted like every other community in the US, and obviously the overwhelming sweep is part of that.” — ©2024 New York Times Company
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
