Can Kamala Harris win back the Arab American vote?
In the aftermath of the October attacks in Israel, the disappointment of Arab Americans with President Biden’s administration continues with no end in sight. If Kamala Harris doesn’t show a readiness to depart from her predecessor’s stances, she could see herself outvoted in the swing states of Michigan and Ohio come November.
The Arab American community has been repeatedly silenced, and today they feel a deep sense of resignation and betrayal. Their disappointment is indeed double: Not only has Biden been unequivocally supporting Israel in the killings and destruction of their home countries, he has also been using their hard-earned tax dollars to fund those acts.
For these Americans, democracy today is but a facade, behind which they see themselves powerless in the face of public policy that systematically undermines their countries of origin, depriving them of natural resources and impoverishing their people.
In an attempt to gauge Arab American sentiment ahead of the 2024 election, I interviewed members of the community in Northern Virginia. During their daily visits to a Middle Eastern coffee shop, where patrons come to relax and spend time in a place that reminds them of home, they talked to me about their malaise. They expressed their daily frustration trying to navigate their busy lives in a country where they feel they have been cast to the margins of political life.
While each of my conversations took a unique turn, very similar statements resounded throughout: “Democracy turned out to be not real,” declared one person I spoke with. “There is no such a thing as free speech, it is like back home where you can’t criticize who is in power.”
“I am outside the public life again,” announced another man in his thirties.
“We are all in the same boat, regardless of which country of that part of the world we come from,” said one woman who moved here 15 years ago. “They see us as one people, all the same, and have no problem invading our countries, disregarding our cultures and killing our communities.”
“I am afraid to say my opinion out loud at work," explained another. "I will surely be expelled.”
“We are teaching our children to not talk about what’s going on, so they don’t get in trouble,” said a mother of two teenage children.
This last statement could not be more relevant amid the violent crackdown on the student protests at university campuses throughout the U.S. Biden didn’t try to oppose the crackdown. He deliberately turned a blind eye and ignored the voice of the youth, and the voice of the Arab American community.
“I don’t want to vote for Trump in November," declared a young woman who was born and raised in Detroit and moved to D.C. for graduate school. "I will probably vote third party.
Foreign policy toward their home countries is undoubtedly a pivotal issue that will influence Arab Americans’ votes, and this year, more than any previous election years, it is what will drive their decision.
In February, 100,000 Arab Americans in Michigan cast an uncommitted vote in the state’s primary, a protest vote against Biden’s silence on the indiscriminate mass killings of Palestinians. These same people voted for him in 2020; Democrats won Michigan by just more than 150,000 votes. Now Harris needs them to vote for her in 2024. The stakes are high.
In a recent poll performed by the Arab American Anti-Discrimination Committee, nearly 18 percent reported they are undecided; 6 percent don't plan to vote at all. “With 1 in 4 voters either undecided or inclined to sit out the election, there is plenty of room for Harris, or any other candidate, to earn more support from the community, if the right positions are taken,” stated the committee.
Biden chose to ignore the Arab American uncommitted vote in Michigan. But Harris has an opportunity to engage with them, and she needs to do it as soon as possible.
Harris has a better chance to bring back hope for these people than Biden — after all, she is a daughter of immigrants herself, and therefore can more naturally relate to the community’s sentiments. Her parents came to the U.S. seeking a better life, working hard to build a new home and a bright future for their children. One gets a unique perspective growing up in an immigrant family in America, and a better understanding of how U.S. foreign policy impacts minority communities internally.
If Harris decides to listen to Arab Americans and diverges from the current administration’s stance, she can win their votes and avoid a Michigan swing that could tip the scale toward a Trump win this November.
What these voters need to see from her is: first, to advocate for a cease-fire — a word seemingly taboo for the Biden administration, which has avoided using it in any public statements — and second, to distance herself from the existing double standards of U.S. foreign policy toward Middle Eastern countries.
Democrats are counting on Americans of all backgrounds to vote for Harris in a rejection of another Trump term. But is it enough to be anti-Trump? Arab Americans want to see commitments from Harris. She has the potential to be the president that all children of immigrants look up to. She could be the president who brings back hope for those who have lost it since Oct. 7.
Sima Beitinjaneh is a student at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and a research coordinator at the Foreign Policy Institute. This op-ed is anchored in a recent ethnographic research project in which she interviewed Arab Americans in the D.C. area about their perspectives on the 2024 election.