Vice President Kamala Harris made many mistakes during her run for the White House. One that stood out was Harris’ callous disregard for Muslim and Arab American voters. Harris won a miniscule 20% of Muslim voters according to an exit poll commissioned by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). The same poll showed former president Donald Trump capturing 21% of Muslim votes while Green Party candidate Jill Stein won an eye-popping 53%.
Harris’ wipeout among Arab American and Muslim voters was not inevitable. Four years ago, Arab American and Muslim voters turned out overwhelmingly for Joe Biden. Biden won 69% of Muslim votes, according to a pollconducted by CAIR. The 3,000,000 Arab American voters in the US cast “more than half” of their ballots for Biden,Time magazine reported.
In 2020, Joe Biden won Michigan, a swing state which is home to the country’s largest concentration of Muslims. In the 2024 election, Harris came in third in Michigan behind Green Party candidate Jill Stein and Republican Donald Trump.
In the city of Dearborn, which is majority Arab American, Harris did even worse. The election totals in Dearborn went 42.6% for Trump and 36.3% for Harris. Remaining votes went to Jill Stein.
Why did Harris fare so poorly among Arab American and Muslim voters? You know the answer. It’s the Biden Administration’s unqualified support for Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza, which so far has killed at least 43,000 Palestinians and has now spread to Lebanon. Israel’s decimation of Palestine is only possible with US arms. “Genocide Joe” has been happy to provide them—no strings attached.
The Biden Administration also provides Israel with diplomatic cover. On November 21, the US vetoed a draft resolution in the UN Security Council which called for, inter alia, an immediate and unconditional ceasefire and an end to Israel’s blocking humanitarian aid from entering Gaza. The other 14 nations on the Security Council all voted in favor of the resolution. Harris could have (and should have) called for a cease-fire and arms embargo. She didn’t. Jill Stein did.
A Schoolmarm from Hell
Harris’ unqualified support for Israel was bad enough. Harris and the Democrats made their electoral prospects even dimmer with actions which showed callous disregard—even hostility—towards the reasonable concerns of Arab American and Muslim voters.
Dr. Ahmed Ghanim, an Egyptian immigrant who the Detroit Metro Times describes as a “prominent Muslim Democrat,” was ejected from a Harris campaign rally in Royal Oak, Michigan on October 24. Dr. Ghanim, who had been invited to the invitation-only rally, was given no explanation. He was not being disruptive. Two waiting policemen told Dr. Ghanim bluntly that he could either leave under his own power or be carted away in the back seat of their patrol car.
Dr. Ghanim told the Detroit News: “I guess that’s how the Democratic Party deals with Muslims. They’re not important to them. … Maybe the Democratic Party doesn’t want people like me and my kind in the party.”
On November 21, Dr. Ghanim brought a civil rights lawsuit for religious and racial discrimination along with other counts against the venue of the event in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan. He deserves to prevail.
At another rally in Michigan, this one on August 7, the vice president morphed into a schoolmarm from Hell. Harris scolded a group of pro-Palestine demonstrators who had interrupted her, telling them: “If you want Donald Trump to win, then say that. Otherwise, I’m speaking.” (And if it happens again she’ll hit ‘em with a ruler.)
Rather than appeal to the Democrats’ traditional working class base, Harris made an unsuccessful bid for Republican votes. At campaign rallies in the battleground states of Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan, Harris brought to the stage former Republican Congresswoman Liz Cheney (Kaleda Rahman, “Muslim Americans Say Kamela Harris Embracing Liz Cheney Cost Her Election,” Newsweek.com, Nov. 6, 2024). Thus did Harris thumb her nose at Arab and Muslim voters. In case anyone needs reminding, Liz Cheney is the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, one of the principal architects of the US war on Iraq. A statement from CAIR’s National Executive Director Nihad Awad called the former congresswoman a “war criminal enthusiast.” In the end, Harris lost not only Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan, but the four other battleground states: Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina, and Nevada. Six of those states went for Biden in 2020.
The Vice President refused to meet with representatives from the Uncommitted movement. The movement was formed in an attempt to pressure President Biden to abandon his unqualified support for Israel by having voters vote “Uncommitted” in the Democratic primaries.
Snubbing the Uncommitted movement just once wasn’t enough for the Democrats. They had to snub the Uncommitted movement a second time. Uncommitted submitted a list of suggestions for Pro-Palestine figures to speak at the Democratic National Convention. The Democrats rejected all of them. Pro-Israel speakers, however, did address the convention.
One of the speakers the Democratic National Committee rejected was Georgia state Representative Ruwa Romman, a Palestinian immigrant from Jordan. She told Mother Jones magazine: “If an elected official in a swing state who is Palestinian cannot make it on that stage nobody else can.”[1] Nobody did.
Commentator Mehdi Hasan was correct when he said that not only did Harris not court the Muslim and Arab America vote, Harris “actively spurned it.”
Don’t Blame Muslims and Arab Americans
Muslim and Arab American voters did not swing the election to Trump. You might not know that if you follow social media. Following Harris’ defeat, some Harris supporters took to X (formerly Twitter) and other platforms to blame Muslims and Arab Americans in the vilest possible language for Harris’ defeat.
The truth is that Democrats have only themselves to blame for Harris’ defeat. Democrats abandoned the working class. Ordinary Americans are being crushed under the weight of sky-high costs of necessities like groceries, gasoline, and housing. Meanwhile, Democrats are wandering around half asleep in their own neoliberal la-la land, exclaiming how great things are. They are oblivious to the pain working class Americans are experiencing.
Will Democrats ever wake up?
Notes.
[1] In this clip from Democracy Now!, Representative Romman reads the speech she would have given.
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