‘They will vote against Harris’: Arab Americans in Michigan desert Democrats over Gaza

That the Trump campaign would open an office in Hamtramck, a tiny city of around 28,000 people north of downtown Detroit, less than a month before the election, speaks to a particular curiosity of the 2024 presidential race.

About 40% of Hamtramck's residents are of Middle Eastern or north African descent, 60% are believed to be Muslim Americans, and the city has an all-Muslim city council.

Last week, as Israel was expanding its war into Lebanon and continuing its daily bombardment of Gaza, scores of locals - many immigrants from Bangladesh, Yemen and other Arab- and Muslim-majority countries - lined Joseph Campau Avenue to attend the official opening of Trump's office.

"Peace in the Middle East will not happen under a Harris administration - she's too weak," said Barry Altman, a Republican party candidate who is running for a seat in Michigan's house of representatives next month, and who was running the new Trump campaign office on a recent afternoon. "Trump is the only hope for peace."

Altman is not alone. Last month, Amer Ghalib, the Democratic mayor of Hamtramck, announced his endorsement of Donald Trump after meeting the former president at a rally in Flint, Michigan, where the pair spoke for about 20 minutes.

In past elections, Arab Americans were a solidly Democratic voting bloc, especially in the years following 9/11 and given Trump's overtly anti-Muslim rhetoric. But with Kamala Harris reportedly "underwater" in Michigan - now three points behind Trump among likely voters, having led the former president by five points as recently as last month, according to one recent poll - Muslim and Arab American communities across Michigan could play a major role in the outcome of the presidential election.

Angry with the Biden administration - and, by extension, Kamala Harris - for its support for Israel, Arab Americans may be willing to overlook Trump's history of closeness with Israel's hard-right leaders. "If, and when, they say, when I'm president, the US will once again be stronger and closer [to Israel] than it ever was," he said last week. "I will support Israel's right to win its war."