Biden’s Israel policy has eroded support for Democrats among Arab Americans: Survey

LONDON: When Arab Americans go to the polls on Nov. 5 to cast their vote for the next US president, more of them intend to vote for Republican candidate Donald Trump than his Democratic rival Kamala Harris.

The finding is one of several surprising results from a poll conducted for Arab News by YouGov. 

The Arab-American vote is virtually polarized. Asked which candidate they are most likely to vote for, 45 percent said Trump while 43 percent opted for Harris, although this gap could easily be narrowed — or made slightly wider — by the survey’s 5.93 percent margin of error.

“The fact that they’re so evenly split is surprising, particularly given what’s been happening in Gaza and now Lebanon,” Firas Maksad, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute in Washington, told the Arab News podcast “Frankly Speaking.”

He added: “You’d think that that would have an impact and would dampen the vote for somebody who is so staunchly pro-Israel like Donald Trump, but clearly that’s not the case.”

Instead, “the Arab-American public generally reflects the same trend here as the (general) American public. Many aren’t newly naturalized, they’re second, third and fourth-generation Arab Americans — some (families) came here in the mid-1800s, and so they very much reflect the general sentiment in the American population.”

What is highly significant, however, is what the finding reveals about how support for the Democrats has ebbed away over the course of the year-long war in Gaza, and the perception among Arab Americans that the Biden administration has failed to rein in Israel or hold it to account.

The slightly greater support for Trump than for Harris comes despite the fact that 40 percent of those polled describe themselves as Democrats, 28 percent as Republicans and 23 percent as independents.

This contradiction is amplified by the fact that 35 percent of respondents describe themselves as politically moderate, and 27 percent as liberal or very liberal. Only a third say they are conservative or very conservative.

The poll illustrates how many Arab Americans have switched their allegiance from the Democrats to the Republicans.

Thirty-seven percent of those polled voted for Trump in 2016, with 27 percent having backed Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.

By 2020, however, Arab-American support for Trump had drained away after a presidency that saw his administration formally recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, moving the US Embassy there from Tel Aviv, and preside over the Abraham Accords, which were widely seen as favoring Israel and marginalizing the Palestinians.

Joe Biden, credited in various exit polls as having won the Muslim vote, was the clear beneficiary in 2020. 

This is reflected in the current YouGov poll, which found that in 2020, 43 percent of respondents backed Biden, with Trump’s share of the Arab-American vote down to 34 percent. 

Now, it seems, the tide has turned back in favor of the Republican ticket, a vote perhaps not so much for Trump — who has announced an intention to expand his notorious 2017 ban on Muslim travelers and said if elected he would bar Palestinian refugees from the US — but against Biden’s record in the Middle East over the past year of conflict.

In September, the Muslim mayor of Hamtramck, in the battleground state of Michigan and known as the only Muslim-majority city in the US, reportedly surprised many in the Arab-American community when he publicly endorsed Trump for president — a decision that the current YouGov poll shows to be no real surprise at all.

“President Trump and I may not agree on everything, but I know he is a man of principles,” Amer Ghalib wrote on Facebook.

Ghalib had met Trump at a town hall meeting in Flint, Michigan, at which the two discussed issues of concern to Arab Americans. 

Michigan, with a large proportion of Arab-American voters, is one of several swing states that could decide the outcome on Nov. 5.

“The question is whether some of this is a protest vote against the Biden-Harris team for their inability, or lack of a political will, to rein in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu,” said Maksad.

“But what’s puzzling about this is that if this is a protest vote, you wouldn’t necessarily vote for Trump because he was even more pro-Israeli, so you’d go to a third-party candidate such as the Greens (Jill Stein).

“So I don’t know how much (of the support for Trump) can be ascribed to what has unfolded in the Middle East. One also has to think of all the other factors (such as) immigration and the economy.”

Overall, 47 percent of those polled believe a Trump presidency would be better for the US economy, against 41 percent for Harris.

Surprisingly, the YouGov survey found little support for Stein, a vocal critic of Israel’s military offensives in Gaza and Lebanon whose running mate is Butch Ware, a history professor at the University of California and a leading academic authority on Islam. 

Despite the fact that Stein has spoken out frequently against Israel’s actions, a surprising 44 percent of Arab Americans said they do not know what her stance is toward the current Israeli government. 

Only 9 percent say they are unaware of the two main candidates’ attitudes to the Israeli government.

“Traditionally, some Arab Americans would like a third-party candidate,” Joseph Haboush, a former non-resident scholar at the Middle East Institute and Washington correspondent for Al Arabiya English, said on the Arab News-sponsored “Ray Hanania Radio Show.”

Haboush added: “But I think the chatter you hear about a third party is out of frustration. There were a lot of Arab Americans who thought a Democratic administration would be better, particularly those who care more about the Palestinian issue, and I think they’ve had a rude awakening.”

Only 4 percent said they will vote for Stein, although the survey reveals greater support for her among Arab-American voters in the Midwest (13 percent), reinforcing previous findings that her popularity among Muslims in key battleground states could significantly impact the two main candidates.

A survey carried out in late August by the Council on American-Islamic Relations found that in Michigan, a battleground Midwest state that is home to a large Arab-American community, 40 percent of Muslim voters back Stein, leaving Trump with 18 percent and Harris with 12 percent.

The CAIR survey also found significant support for Stein among Muslims in other key states, including Wisconsin (44 percent), Arizona (35 percent) and Pennsylvania (25 percent).

In the YouGov survey, Stein’s 13 percent Arab-American support in the Midwest comes chiefly at the expense of the two main candidates, costing Harris and Trump 7 percentage points apiece.

This could prove to be hugely significant. Stein stands no chance of winning the election, but in 2016, when she garnered only 1 percent of the vote, Democrats blamed her for taking crucial votes away from Clinton, costing her the presidency.