OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
Democrat presidential nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris is collapsing with key voter demographics and it could cost her the election.
A growing number of Arab Americans are abandoning the Democrat nominee for former President Donald Trump, The Center Square reported.
If true it could be a crushing blow to the vice president in a must-win swing state like Michigan that has a sizeable Arab American population.
The Arab American Institute conducted a poll of 500 Arab American registered voters, and discovered that the former president the vice president have close to an even split of the Arab American vote at 42 percent -41 percent.
But it gets worse for the Democrat presidential nominee.
Among likely Arab American voters the former president leads his rival.
“Looking more closely, with those that report they are very likely to vote, Trump leads Harris 46% to 42%, the group said. “Only 79% of Democrats support Harris, while 89% of Republicans support Trump. Kamala Harris regained much of the support Biden lost after October 7th, but Harris remains 18 points below Biden’s 2020 level of support with Arab American voters.”
The war between Israel and Gaza is at the center of the shift and some Arab Americans have decided to vote fr a third party candidate, but the former president has been the beneficiary of the vast number of Arab Americans who have left the vice president.
“All the third-party candidates combined receive just 12% of the Arab American vote. Instead, it’s Trump who is the beneficiary of the community’s anger and despair over the Biden Administration’s failure to prevent the unfolding genocide in Gaza,” the group said.
In September the vice president lost the backing of the Uncommitted National Movement, a well-known anti-war group with strong ties to Michigan’s Palestinian American population.
This could prove to be a significant blow for Harris in the 2024 race. The group said it would not support Harris, citing her refusal to change her position on important foreign policy issues. The group has been lobbying Harris to visit with families impacted by American-backed bombs in Gaza and to take a more peace-oriented posture on American aid to Israel.
Originating from anti-war protests against US participation in Gaza, the Uncommitted National Movement has become a potent grassroots force, particularly among Michigan’s Arab and Muslim electorate.
To demand a meeting with Harris by September 15, the organization staged a historic sit-in at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago earlier this year. Their main demands were to secure a truce in Gaza and to stop US arms supplies to Israel.
However, the movement has publicly distanced itself from Harris as a result of the campaign’s inability to respond to these demands.
“Vice President Harris’s unwillingness to shift on unconditional weapons policy or to even make a clear campaign statement in support of upholding existing U.S. and international human rights law has made it impossible for us to endorse her,” the group stated in a statement made public after the deadline.
They continued by saying that although they are against a Trump administration, they find it difficult to back Harris in the next election due to their dissatisfaction with the way the Democratic leadership has handled the Israel-Palestine conflict.
Given that Michigan is a battleground state and Muslim voters there were crucial to Joe Biden’s win in 2020, this omission is especially noteworthy.
The Arab American community, which has a substantial Palestinian component among its members, has become more outspoken in its criticism of American support for Israel.
Many in the community view Harris’s silence on the matter as additional alienation because they are still angry about how the Biden administration handled the Gaza conflict in 2021.
