‘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."

Yet national polls show Arab Americans slightly favoring the former president; others are increasingly vocal in support of the Green party's Jill Stein.

While Hamtramck may not sway a national election all by itself, it offers a window into how many Muslim and Arab Americans feel about their political leaders, as Israel's war on Gaza enters a second year and spreads into Lebanon.

Hamtramck aside, Macomb and Oakland counties, north of downtown Detroit, are home to an estimated 140,000 people - around 45% of Michigan's entire Arab American community, which numbers more than 300,000.

Previous elections show that voting in these counties historically runs very close.

In 2020, Trump won 53% of the Macomb county vote, a community that is home to an estimated 65,000-80,000 Arab Americans. Even within Macomb county, voters are divided: Trump won Sterling Heights, a city home to a large Iraqi Chaldean community, by 11%, while Biden won Warren, a neighboring city, by 14%.

Next door in Oakland county, a largely suburban community that's home to around 60,000 people who identify as Arab American, Biden won 56% of the vote four years ago.

But over the past year, Biden and Harris have been repeatedly rebuked by Michigan's Arab and Muslim communities. Earlier this year, a number of community leaders refused to meet with Democratic campaign officials rather than Biden administration representatives to discuss the war in Gaza. Weeks later, more than 100,000 people in Michigan voted "uncommitted" in the Democratic primaries in a protest vote against Biden's Gaza policy.

Despite initial cautious optimism, Biden's replacement by Harris at the top of the ticket hasn't much changed this picture, especially as the Middle East has grown more volatile.

"Harris made it very clear that she wanted to continue funding the state of Israel," said Hassan Abdel Salam, the director of the Abandon Harris campaign, at a press conference in Dearborn on Wednesday to officially endorse Jill Stein for president.

Harris has maintained her stance on Israel's right to defend itself and has largely ignored the conditions laid out by the uncommitted movement, which declined to endorse her (but has forcefully come out against Trump). A poll by the Arab American Institute has Harris 18 points below Biden's 2020 level of support among Arab Americans.

"We know that we have 40,000 voters just in Dearborn. They are highly persuadable to our cause, and we believe fundamentally that if they come out to vote, they will vote against Harris," said Abdel Salam.

"The former president prevented our families, our friends, our colleagues from entering the country," he continued, referring to Trump's 2017 travel ban on several Muslim-majority countries. "But the vice-president killed them."

Trump's visit to Detroit on Thursday marks the 11th time the former president has come to the state. Harris, for her part, has campaigned here five times.

Four years ago, Hamtramck voters overwhelmingly backed Biden, with the president winning 86% of the vote. One of them was Muhammad Hashim, who emigrated to the US from Bangladesh more than three decades ago and today runs a grocery store catering to the south Asian community in the heart of Hamtramck.

But the Democrats won't get his vote this time around.

"Biden messed up the country, he's really not good for the middle class. We're struggling to survive and today we don't get any help," he says.

He hopes that Trump, on the other hand, uses his business acumen to bring down the cost of the products he sells in his store, many of which are imported from overseas. "Trump is not perfect, but we have no choice," he says.

Hashim's other major concern is Gaza, where more than 42,000 people have been killed by Israeli attacks. "The No 1 reason [to not vote for Harris] is that she is supporting Israel 100%," he said.

Hamtramck is considered one of the most diverse cities in the country and is the first in the US to have an all-Muslim city council.

Still, even as Hamtramck's mayor has come out in favor of Trump, residents and other local leaders say that doesn't necessarily represent the whole community. Several Hamtramck city leaders are attempting to mobilize support for Harris. In recent weeks, dozens of prominent Muslim leaders have endorsed Harris, as has Emgage Action, a Muslim voter-registration group. On 3 October, a group established to activate Arab American supporters for the Harris-Walz ticket nationwide was announced.

"We are in a moment where our community is suffering and hurting in more ways than we can count. We have also seen four years under a Trump presidency and what that did to our community, and the risks that come with that," said a spokesperson for Arab Americans for Harris-Walz. "We're not saying that with a Harris administration there is no risk, but under a Trump administration, the risk is much higher. We believe [backing Harris] is a more favorable path forward for us here in the United States and in our home countries."

Meanwhile in Hamtramck, outside the new Trump campaign office, Altman, a pastor who says he was an independent until last year, invites high school students inside for a bottle of pop. He hands them Trump flyers and literature from his own campaign and tells them to share them with their parents.