Last month, Muhammad Hasan, a longtime city councilman in Hamtramck, Michigan, the only Muslim-majority city in the country, got a call from someone on Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign asking what he could do to win back disgruntled Michigan Muslims.
“I yelled at them. I screamed, I really said, “You’re not doing anything! You do nothing! You should do more,” Hassan said. “I made a lot of noise.”
That message, hardly the only one Hassan delivered, reached the Harris campaign, which in the past two weeks has sharply stepped up efforts to win back a group of voters who could be critical in Michigan and other battleground states. states.
But Harris faces continued problems finding Muslim and Arab community leaders willing to openly embrace him, and risks a backlash from his own constituents, who are angered by continued U.S. support for Israel’s war in Gaza and South Lebanon.
Most Muslims have been reliable Democratic voters in recent years. But endorsing Harris now may invite bitter and personal recriminations from some parts of the community.
“They are traumatized. They are threatened. They curse them, spit on them, say that you are traitors. How can you support a genocidal candidate?’” Osama Siblani, publisher of the Dearborn, Michigan-based Arab American News, said of Harris supporters.
With large Palestinian and Lebanese American communities, Dearborn has been the epicenter of the blow, with many families directly affected by the war.
The Arab America PAC, which typically backs Democrats up and down the polls, is meeting in Siblani’s office on Saturday to effectively make the final decision on the president’s confirmation. Siblani personally plans to keep the top of the ticket blank and support only down-ballot candidates.
And Muslim voters have expressed moral and religious concerns about supporting an administration they see as complicit in what they see as genocide, even saying they don’t know if they can explain their vote for Harris on Judgment Day.
“No one elected in this community has ever stood by him because they know that if they’re Arab Americans or Muslim Americans, they’re going to lose their seats if they do that,” Siblani added.
A group called Muslim Women for Harris disbanded after its request for a Palestinian speaker at the Democratic National Convention was denied. then reformulate.
Harris supporters talk about creating “consent structures” so that organizers, voters who agree with them on most issues and have a voting history, feel comfortable supporting Harris.
And they have had greater success far beyond the Levant in other parts of the multifaceted Muslim community with roots on at least four continents, from which Harris recently received support. Somalis, South Asia and African-American Muslims.
The difference is also evident among leaders, with Harris enjoying the support of prominent Muslim Democrats such as Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison and Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., but not Rep. Rashida Tlaib, a Palestinian-American Democrat who represents Dearborn.
In nearby Hamtramck, for example, which has a large Bengali and Yemeni population, Hasan said he is now confident that both communities will overwhelmingly support Harris — especially after Trump said this month of the “many” number of Yemeni refugees coming to the United States.are known terrorists.”
“Our people are not so worried about what is happening in Gaza right now. Our people are worried about what will happen after the election of Donald Trump,” said Hasan, who has been on the city council for 16 years.
But there is also righteous anger toward Harris and anyone who supports him.
Representative Ruva Romman of Georgia, a Palestinian-American and a vocal leader of the No Action movement, which was formed to protest President Joe Biden’s support for Israel he sulked on stage at the National Arab American Convention in Dearborn last month.
As the audience cheered them on, one audience member accused Romman of “continuing to defend genocide,” while another said it was “disgusting” that Romman had announced his willingness to speak at the Democratic National Convention.
“How do you plan to maintain trust and confidence between the Palestinian, Muslim and Arab communities when there is a perception that your support for Harris is at odds with advocating for an end to the genocide in Gaza?” the hijab woman asked Romman.
Romman did not support Harris.
Recalling the moment a few weeks later, Romman said he was “totally unsurprised” by the hostility, and that while it wasn’t representative, it wasn’t unusual either.
“We tried to warn people. “I think people thought we were just making it up for attention,” Romman said of Muslim and Arab voters’ frustration with Democrats over Gaza. “This is not the number one issue for the majority of voters. But this is the number one issue for enough voters to influence the election.”
Antipathy has been particularly strong among supporters of Green Party candidate Jill Stein. strong support Among disaffected Muslim and Arab voters in Michigan and beyond.
In a rare move, the DNC released an endorsement by Harris on Friday television commercial It’s a direct attack on Stein as a spoiler candidate for Trump, whose spokeswoman said his six-figure ad buy would be focused mostly on Michigan.
Stein’s running mate is left-wing Muslim professor Butch Ware noted The October 7 terrorist attack by Hamas said Muslims who supported Harris would burn in hell for it.
“Muslims” who supported Harris inscribed their names on the tablets of eternity along with the names of Nimrod, Pharaoh, Caesar and Yazid. Everyone killed in Gaza has a claim against them on Judgment Day. They’re best dressed lightly – it’s hell to hear it’s hot,” he said he said On X.
Hudhayfah Ahmad, a spokeswoman for the Abandon Harris Campaign, which emerged as an attempt to politically punish Biden for Gaza, denied that groups supporting Harris were merely “claiming to represent the Muslim-American community.”
Harris’ supporters, meanwhile, were candid about their concerns.
In a call last week with Emgage, the largest Muslim group backing him, each speaker said they felt conflicted and understood the decision would be “unpopular.” Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., praised the group for their “courage in making this difficult choice to support Kamala Harris.”
“We’re fighting because the candidate has given us nothing to work with,” said Jim Zogby, founder of the Arab American Institute and a longtime member of the Democratic National Committee, who hosted a panel on Palestinian rights at the Democratic Convention. “There’s a desperate need for them to do something that will give our people something to give back to those who want to see a Democrat win.”
Some of Harris’s supporters, both public and private, say they understand the vice president can’t change foreign policy, that Jewish voters are larger and better organized, and appreciate his efforts now.
But they say he missed the chance to differentiate himself from Biden and missed critical time in the months between his rise to the top of the ticket and now, the big news about his engagement with Muslim and Arab voters. decision Not allowed to speak Palestinian at the convention.
Zogby said he hoped Harris would cut ties with Israel and Biden, as Lyndon Johnson did in 1968 with Democratic candidate Hubert Humphrey in the final days of his presidency over the unpopular Vietnam War.
“There’s an opening for him to create some distance with the administration,” he said. “It would be easy for him to bring people back.”
Arab Americans for Harris-WalzA new group of Washington staffers, mostly unaffiliated with Harris, tried to draw a line between Harris and Biden — although some of them now work for his administration — but said their real focus was Trump.
This week, not only did Trump think about turning Gaza into a fancy resort “better than Monaco,” but the campaign trail declared that Gaza is part of Israel, which Israel does not claim.
“We cannot allow Donald Trump, who is certainly not our ally, to use our pain today to return to the White House, where he will further fuel violence and war in Gaza and throughout the Middle East,” the organization said in a statement. statement they announced their launch last week.
Meanwhile, Harris’ campaign says they recognize the anger and think they have a good story to tell. They point to Harris Support for the cease-fire in Gaza His opposition to Trump’s so-called Muslim ban and his harsh rhetoric against Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu during a civil rights march in Selma, Alabama in May.
“Vice President Harris has been steadfast in his support of our country’s diverse Muslim community throughout his career,” said Nasrina Barghzie, the campaign’s director of Muslim and Arab American relations. “He will continue to work to end the war in Gaza so that Israel is safe, the hostages are freed, the suffering in Gaza ends, and the Palestinian people can enjoy dignity, security, freedom and their rights. determination”.