Loading ...Arab Americans “Double down” on Democracy in US Midterms
SOURCE: THE NATIONAL
BY: JOYCE KARAM
For more than three million Arab Americans, tomorrow’s midterm elections are not just about what the Republicans or Democrats will bring to the table, in terms of the control of Congress and the legislative priorities that they will set.
Unprecedented levels of participation by the community across the United States can be seen in work focused on getting out the vote, encouraging voter registration, and running more than 60 candidates on different ballots.
It comes at a time of increased hostility and hate crimes facing the community and other minorities in the US, explained Maya Berry, the Executive Director of the Arab American Institute (AAI).
In just 27 states and Washington DC, the AAI has documented 6,213 hate crime incidents in 2017, an uptick from the nationwide total of 6,121 in 2016.
“There is a sense of a threat, a danger, a genuine sense of concern among the Arab American community of what is going on in the country,” Ms Berry told The National. This worry is driving Arab Americans like no other time before in US history, argues Ms Berry, to take part in the democratic process, running as Democrats, Republicans (including libertarians) and independents for public offices.
Ms Berry describes the process as “doubling down on democracy” by the community, and cites record numbers in voter registration of Arab Americans in the 2018 elections. A flood of volunteers who are canvassing in key states or working the phones at AAI is another example of this activism.
If it translates into votes on Tuesday, it could mean electing the first two Muslim and Arab American women to Congress, Rashida Tleib and Ilhan Omar.
The participation is also happening across different generations of the community. Donna Shalala, a 77-year-old Lebanese-American, and Ammar Najjar, a 29-year-old with Mexican, Palestinian and American roots, both have a shot at winning in Florida and California as Democrats in Congress, while the 44-year-old Chris Sununu could be elected tomorrow as the Republican governor of New Hampshire.
In 1998, AAI launched the ‘Yalla Vote’, an effort to galvanise Arab Americans in casting their vote in US elections. Making up 5% of the electorate in Michigan, and 1.5% -2% in Ohio and Pennsylvania, the community could tip the balance in razor-thin races in these states. This year alone there has been more than 50 Yalla Vote voter registration events across 18 states.
For the first time as well, AAI is backing ballots initiatives, two in Michigan and one in Florida. The Florida effort will restore voting rights to formerly incarcerated Floridians, and on Proposals 2 and 3 in Michigan. Proposal 2 takes on gerrymandering, and drawing of election districts, and Proposal 3 removes barriers to voting and implements safeguards for elections, including automatic voter registration and allowing any voter to cast an absentee ballot.
The participation and rise of Arab-American candidates is at times being met with smears from opponents. “Ammar Campa-Najjar is working to infiltrate Congress. He’s used three different names to hide his family’s ties to terrorism,” one of such ads has read. Both Ms Omar and Ms Tlaib have been labeled by the some on the far-right “as two Jihadi US candidates with connections to terror organisations.”
Arab-American participation and prospects for winning tomorrow will all depend on turnout. Campaigns to drive voters to the polling stations and make last-minute calls are already in place while the surge in millennial and youth participation in the community is giving organisers hope that this time it may be different.
