Loading ...Did Arab Americans Make a Difference in the Election?
By: William Lafi Youmans / Arab America Contributing Writer
Everyone expected a close race, but in the end, it was not. The ex-president, real estate tycoon, and TV star Donald Trump emerged victorious over their opponent, Vice-President Kamala Harris. Harris took over for President Joe Biden, whose age and cognitive coherence became a straightforward issue without a primary or contested convention.
Harris, for her part, ran an impressive campaign, raising large amounts of money and putting together a potent ground game. However, it was clear that her campaign strategy was to play it safe, offering a vague policy platform that rested more on her not being Trump than having a clear, new vision for a post-Biden America. She seemed to relax her campaign at the end on the bold idea of having a Republican on her cabinet. When she fully welcomed the Cheney family as a supporter, underscoring their endorsement, it was another tone-deaf moment given their co-authorship of the disastrous Bush wars on Iraq and Afghanistan.
As results are still coming in, it will take some time to fully measure the impact of the Arab American community vote, along with others who voted against the Biden administration’s complicity in Israel’s assaults on Gaza and Lebanon. Right now, as Trump’s victory is official, it is possible it was one factor in Harris’s loss, but it is too early to say, and the size of Trump’s win makes it less likely to have been a huge reason.
Various factors, including immigration policies, foreign policy stances, and domestic issues such as healthcare and education, have influenced Arab Americans’ participation in the electoral process. In recent years, the Arab American community has grown in both numbers and political influence yet has not gained full recognition or embrace by candidates and parties. In American politics, money is king. Until Arab Americans are significant donors to political campaigns and groups that seek to influence parties, they will only be considered when needed.
It was only toward the end of the campaign cycle that the candidates made plays for the Arab American vote. Trump stated Lebanon, and Harris said in a speech that Palestinians had rights. For Harris, though, this was too little and too late. The Democrats had deployed former president Bill Clinton to Michigan, where he bizarrely justified Israel’s claims and implicitly used violence based on biblical history. It was an epic own goal. Even Trump’s cursory lip service claiming he wanted to see peace in the region came off as more genuine than Harris’s, who was part of the administration arming, abetting, and finding the genocide.
More recently, Arab Americans have tended to support Democratic candidates slightly more than Republicans. According to an AAI poll, this has been the case since 2000, but last year, the predominant party’s identification swung to the Republican party. This shift can be attributed to several factors, including Trump’s businessman aura, which resonated with many Arab American business owners and entrepreneurs.
A prominent factor influencing Arab American voters in the 2024 election was their dissatisfaction with the Biden administration’s handling of foreign policy, particularly regarding Israel’s actions in Gaza and Lebanon. Nearly half of major Dearborn precincts in this election went to Trump, while Harris and anti-Green Party candidate Jill Stein split the rest. This was in a city that overwhelmingly went for Biden in 2020. Trump, after all, was remembered for his first act as president, instituting a Muslim ban keeping out visitors from various countries, including Yemen.
The extent of resentment over Biden’s full-throated backing of Israel was such that many were willing to forget Trump’s sordid record of Islamophobia and anti-immigrant rhetoric, not to mention his legal troubles. Trump was even on record saying that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should go all the way to finish the job.
While yes, the impact of Arab American voters is probably decisive, the gap between Trump’s victory over Harris is so vast that Democrats will not be able to blame anyone else in particular this time. This shock should send them to look in the mirror. I doubt it will. The Democrats have become just the sock puppet of a basket of interests, dressed up in shallow, neoliberal multiculturalism, and they are sure to remain unchanged.
For Arab Americans to matter politically, they must do more than vote. They have to become one of the organized interests that political parties cannot afford to take for granted. Though some Arab American voters will cheer this election’s outcome, either for Trump’s resurgence or for the Biden-Harris demise, they cannot presume any elevation to their political standing as a community, sadly.
William Lafi Youmans is a visiting associate professor at Northwestern University in Qatar and serves on the board of the Arab America Foundation. His research explores transnationalism, power, and communication issues, focusing on global news, media industries, technology, law, and politics. He also specializes in media law, Middle East politics, and Arab American studies.
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