Why did Muslims in America punish the Democratic Party?

Hamtramck holds special symbolism for America’s Muslim political community, having become in 2021 the first city in American history to have an all-Muslim city council and mayor.

Hamtramck is located in the state of Michigan (northeastern United States) and is inhabited by about 28 thousand people, 25% of whom are Muslims of Arab origin, most of whom are from Yemen, and 27% of the city’s residents are also Muslims of Asian origin, most of whom are from Bangladesh.

Amer Ghaleb is the only Muslim mayor in the United States. He is of Yemeni origin and a member of the Democratic Party. However, he represents an example of the changing political mood in American society over the past four years, and the displacement witnessed by the Arab and Muslim communities in their oscillating positions between the Democratic and Republican parties.

Despite his affiliation with the Democratic Party, Ghalib decided to rebel and support former Republican President Donald Trump in the elections held the day before yesterday, Tuesday. He said last September on the X platform, “I announce my support for former President Donald Trump, and I hope he will be the next president of the United States.”

Voting trends

Last August, a poll conducted by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) showed that 18% of Muslim voters in Michigan supported Trump, compared to only 12% who supported the Democratic Party candidate Kamala Harris, while most Muslims decided to distance themselves from both candidates and give their votes to other candidates.

This is what the media specialist in American affairs, Abdul Rahman Youssef, went to, as he saw that the orientations of the Arab and Muslim communities were divided in these elections as follows:

• There are those who have decided to boycott and not vote for Harris or Trump at all, without paying attention to the electoral process at all, because its results do not represent a turning point for many of them, and the focus should be on local issues such as abortion, education, and gender.
• The second team said we should pick Jill Stein so we can show our strength and influence behind a particular candidate.
• The third team decided to punish the Democratic Party for its position on Middle East issues such as Gaza.

Youssef added - in an interview with Al Jazeera Net - that "many Arabs and Muslims do not want to vote for either team, or they do not want to give the Democrats this minimal success," meaning that the majority of them do not support Trump, but have simply decided to abandon Harris and the Democratic Party.

Muslim voter influence

There are 4 million Muslims in the United States, out of a population of 336 million, and their voting bloc represents about 2.5 million voters, and they are distributed across many states.

Therefore, Abdul Hamid Siam, a professor of Middle Eastern studies at Rutgers University in New Jersey, believes that the vote of the Arab and Islamic community is not very effective, and they do not have significant electoral weight except in some states such as Michigan, Illinois, and Pennsylvania.

Siam added - in an interview with Al Jazeera Net - that 16 Arab and Islamic organizations agreed to commit not to vote for Harris to punish her for her role and the Biden administration's support for the war of extermination on the Gaza Strip, but recent days have witnessed changes in the election campaign by the Republican candidate.

Another point raised about the recent US elections was regarding the voters’ position on issues of domestic American concern or those related to US foreign policy. The issues of the Middle East region were the focus of choice and preference among Arab and Muslim communities.

The journalist specializing in American affairs believes that many Muslim families have turned to voting for Republican candidates in local state elections since 2022, in response to the Democratic Party’s expansion in teaching sexual content, homosexuality, abortion, and education.

Youssef gave the example of Virginia, where Muslim and even Christian families voted for the Republican candidate, after Fairfax State introduced educational content for elementary school children that included the freedom to change gender and homosexuality.

Regarding foreign policy, the professor of Middle East studies at Rutgers University says that the Democratic Party is usually less harsh and fierce, “The previous Trump administration taught us not to give any importance to Arab and Islamic countries, and one of its first decisions in the recent period was to prevent citizens from five Islamic and Arab countries from entering the United States.”

The US elections were held last Tuesday, and according to results reported by US media, Trump won the presidential race after significantly exceeding the required number of votes in the Electoral College, which is 270 votes, defeating his Democratic competitor, Kamala Harris.

Trump will be sworn in on January 20 to officially begin his presidential duties.

Source: Al Jazeera