Biden faces the risk of being turned away by Muslim and Arab voters

Arab and Muslim American communities are warning that they will make President Biden pay for his handling of the crisis in the Gaza Strip.

In 2020, Joe Biden won the state of Michigan with a narrow margin over Republican opponent Donald Trump of more than 150,000 votes.

The two groups of voters who helped him take the lead in Michigan and other key battleground states, including Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, were Muslim Americans and Arab Americans. Battleground states that do not lean Democratic or Republican play a key role in deciding the presidential race.

Now, four years later, as Biden and Trump head toward a rematch in November, the Democratic president faces a growing risk of backlash from those same voters, many of whom are trying to damage his candidacy.

Outraged by US support for Israel in its unprecedented campaign in Gaza, many Arab and Muslim American voters say they will stay away from this year's elections.

US President Joe Biden speaks at the White House on February 8. Photo: AFP

Arab and Muslim communities say they have called on the Biden administration to speak up and stop the shelling of Gaza to no avail, and that Washington’s stance has left them regretting voting for President Biden in the past.

Communities in Dearborn, Detroit and other large cities with large Arab-American populations have successfully lobbied local council leaders to introduce unilateral resolutions demanding a ceasefire in Gaza.

Mai El-Sadany, director of the Washington-based Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy (TIMEP), said local resolutions are symbolic but are a sign of the concerns and priorities of the American public today.

“It provides a platform for people to explain why this issue is important and how it affects them or their families,” she said. “Local councils have the ability to bring like-minded people together, to create a greater sense of urgency and pressure on foreign policy makers to reconsider their approach.”

Some Arab voters are choosing to stay away from state primaries and even the general election in November if there is no ceasefire in Gaza. Community leaders in Minnesota launched a “Drop Biden” campaign last October.

Others said they planned to write the message "free Palestine" on the ballots.

In the Michigan Democratic primary on February 27, many Arab voters did not check President Biden’s name but instead checked the “uncommitted” box on their ballots. This option indicates that the voter supports the party but is not committed to any of the candidates listed on the ballot. “Uncommitted” votes will not be counted for President Biden.

Zeidan, who is of Palestinian descent, voted “uncommitted” in Michigan and has said she will not vote for President Biden in November. She is forming a group to encourage others to do the same.

There are about 3.5 million people of Arab descent in the United States, about 1% of the population. About 65% are Christians, 30% are Muslims and a small number are Jews.

These groups tend to vote based on different interests, but they are "completely united on the need for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip," said Youssef Chouhoud, a researcher on race and religion at Christopher Newmark University (CNU) in Virginia.

Dearborn, Michigan, is home to the largest Arab-American community in the country, making up more than 40 percent of the city's population. Georgia, Pennsylvania, Florida and Virginia also have large Arab communities.

Georgia, Michigan and Pennsylvania will be battleground states in November, where the gap between Democrats and Republicans is so small that even a small change could change the final outcome.

The Arab vote has been a turning point in the tight 2020 race for the White House. Biden leads Trump by 154,000 votes in Michigan, most of them from the Arab community, which accounts for 5% of the vote. Michigan is home to about 240,000 Arab Americans.

A voter in Dearborn, Michigan, holds a sign calling for an "uncommitted" choice over voting for President Joe Biden on February 27. Photo: AFP

In Georgia, Mr Biden won by less than 12,000 votes. The state is home to more than 57,000 Arab Americans.

But growing discontent among these communities has meant that for the first time in 26 years, the Democratic Party is no longer the choice of many Arab voters, whether Christian or Muslim. President Biden’s approval among Arabs has dropped from 59% in 2020 to 17% in 2023.

There are about 4.5 million Muslims in America, and the vast majority of them, about 3.5 million, are not of Arab descent. Most are of Pakistani and Indian descent.

But non-Arab Muslim communities that typically vote Democratic are also losing faith in President Biden.

About one million Muslims voted in 2020, and 80% of them chose President Biden. According to the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), about two million Muslims are registered to vote in the 2024 election.

This time, however, just 5% of Muslim Americans say they will vote for Mr Biden in November, according to a poll conducted by the Muslim activist group Emgage.

Muslims in the United States are concentrated mainly in New York, California, Illinois, New Jersey, Texas, Florida, Ohio, Virginia, Georgia and Michigan.

Other communities could also hurt President Biden at the ballot box. Polls conducted by the Pew Research Center show that 40% of Americans disapprove of the Biden administration’s response to the conflict, especially among younger people.

Biden's campaign has tried to portray the president as frustrated with the situation in Gaza to convince voters to side with him.

NBC reported last month that President Biden had expressed his displeasure with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over Tel Aviv's unwillingness to agree to a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip. The White House chief also told reporters at a press conference on February 8 that Israel's response in Gaza "crossed the line."

Washington, however, has so far continued to support Israel's campaign. In mid-February, US Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield was the sole opponent and vetoed an Algerian-drafted resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.

She explained that this could jeopardize ongoing negotiations to rescue Israeli hostages still held by Hamas and that an immediate ceasefire would derail US efforts to build “lasting peace ” in the region.

In January, the US Senate approved an additional $14 billion in aid to Israel. Israel is the largest recipient of US aid, at about $3.3 billion a year, according to the Council on Foreign Relations. Nearly all of that money goes to military operations.

Some analysts point out that the Muslim and Arab communities only account for about 2-3% of the total voters, but their turning away from Mr. Biden could cause President Biden to lose his advantage in battleground states and even a small gap could be enough to make a decisive difference, paving the way for Mr. Trump to step into the White House.

“There is reason to believe that President Biden is at risk of losing more than 50% of the votes he received from Arabs and Muslims in 2020,” Chouhoud said. “He can no longer count on them.”

“That doesn’t mean we should blame Muslims,” Chouhoud added. “They’ve been warning about what they’re going to do for months. If the Democrats were really interested in preventing a second Trump term, they would have done something different.”

Vu Hoang (According to Al Jazeera, Reuters, AFP )

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