- Title: Why Michigan's Arab voters are rebelling against Biden
- Date: 27th February 2024
- Summary: WARREN, MICHIGAN, UNITED STATES (RECENT) (REUTERS) ADAM ABUSALAH, 23-YEAR-OLD PALESTINIAN AMERICAN ORGANIZER WHO CAMPAIGNED FOR U.S. PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN IN 2020, GETTING INTO PROTEST VAN COVERED WITH LED PANELS SHOWING IMAGE OF BIDEN AND THE WORDS: "GENOCIDE JOE" (SOUNDBITE) (English) ADAM ABUSALAH, 23-YEAR-OLD PALESTINIAN AMERICAN ORGANIZER, SAYING: "So, in 2020, I worked
- Embargoed: 12th March 2024 10:50
- Keywords: Arab voters Biden Dearborn Election Michigan
- Location: DEARBORN, WARREN AND FLINT, MICHIGAN, UNITED STATES
- City: DEARBORN, WARREN AND FLINT, MICHIGAN, UNITED STATES
- Country: US
- Topics: North America,Government/Politics,Elections/Voting
- Reuters ID: LVA001093516022024RP1
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: Adam Abusalah, a 23-year-old Palestinian American Democrat, used to go door-to-door in his neighborhood in Dearborn, Michigan, campaigning for U.S. President Joe Biden. Now, the young Democrat actively campaigns against Biden and can often be seen driving around at protests in a van bearing the slogan 'Genocide Joe.'
"In 2020, I worked on the Biden campaign, and there was a lot of people in the Muslim community, in the Arab community who came out and vote for Biden. Seventy-five percent of Muslims in Michigan voted for Biden," said Abusalah.
"We helped this guy get over the finish line... and right now, as our family is being bombed, he's sending more bombs... more weapons to bomb Palestinian children and women and innocent men. So we're disgusted. We're very hurt by what he's doing," he added.
Michigan is home to over 300,000 Arab American and Muslim voters, the majority of whom backed Biden in 2020, and had the highest nationwide turnout of young voters, aged 18 to 29, in the 2022 midterm elections.
Biden won the state by less than 155,000 votes in 2020.
Abusalah is not alone in feeling disenfranchised by the Biden administration. Some community organizers and Democratic elected officials have been urging Democrats to cast an "uncommitted" vote in Michigan's Democratic primary on Tuesday (February 27) to protest Biden not calling for a permanent ceasefire in Israel's attacks on Gaza.
Dearborn celebrity chef Amanda Saab, who was the first veiled Muslim woman to appear on Fox's Master Chef cooking competition, voted for Biden in 2020 but says she will not this time because of his response to the war in Gaza.
"It's absolutely clear for me (that I will not vote for Biden). There is no... there's 30,000 people that lost their lives for no reason under the Biden administration. How can you redeem yourself from that? 30,000?" she said.
"And I hope for those that say, oh, you know, if you don't vote for Biden, you're voting for Trump. No, we're voting for humanity. And that's where we stand firmly, unequivocally... If that means somebody else becomes president because we can't trust in the leadership that we currently have, then I put it back on everybody else to give us better options. Why are we okay with these two only?"
Biden has faced criticism and protests in Dearborn, which is 54% Arab American, and from anti-war voices around the country for his support for Israel's operations in Gaza.
Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud, the city's first Arab-American mayor, and other community leaders skipped a meeting last month with Biden's campaign manager, demanding dialogue over the administration's policy, not electoral politics.
"I think the the word I hear used most often is betrayal," said Hammoud, when asked how Dearborn's Arab community feels about the U.S. response to the Gaza conflict.
Biden’s campaign has been surprised by the depth of anger and frustration over Israel and other policies, according to officials in his campaign, the White House and the Democratic Party.
Mitch Landrieu, the campaign co-chair, acknowledged the issue is “difficult.”
“We have complicated issues that need to be resolved,” he told Reuters when asked about Gaza-related election concerns. “The President -- and we're gonna have to follow his lead on this -- he has said many, many times, he's not thinking about this in terms of elections. He's thinking about this in terms of what the right thing to do is.”
Landrieu said Biden’s campaign had time to dispel concerns. “You can expect a very, very aggressive outreach to all voters, young voters particularly, on all of these issues,” he said.
Biden’s language on the Gaza war has sharpened as the death toll rises, and his administration’s criticism of Israel has become more pointed. Earlier this month, Biden told reporters he was talking with Netanyahu about a ceasefire. He has expressed increased concern about Palestinian casualties and emphasized the need for a future independent Palestinian state.
But he has stopped short of calling for an immediate and permanent ceasefire or blocking funding to Israel, steps that many voters interviewed by Reuters said were imperative for them to support him again.
“What I want is for the people around President Biden to knock some sense into this campaign, and tell him that if he does not take a different approach, he will lose key voters here in Michigan that will hand Trump the presidency,” said Abbas Alawieh, a former senior congressional aide and senior Democratic strategist who grew up in Dearborn after fleeing Israeli bombing in Lebanon in 2006.
"Help us prevent that nightmare," he said.
(Production: Julio Cesar Chavez, Hussein Waaile, Andrea Shalal, Dan Fastenberg, Omar Younis) - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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