How Muslim and Arab Americans Voted in the 2024 Election

Both communities to the Democratic Party: fuck around and find out.

We’re now over a week out from the election and data on how Muslim and Arab Americans voted is beginning to come together. Please note that early exit polling data can be misleading, and the full scope of what happened in this election will be analyzed most accurately in the coming weeks and months:

How Muslim Americans Reported Voting

• NATIONAL: A CAIR exit poll released late last week shows that 53% of Muslims reported voting for Stein; 21% voted for Trump; and 20% voted for Harris. 

  • It’s notable that this national exit polling differs greatly from CAIR’s final poll before the election which reported Stein at 41%; Harris at 40%; and Trump at 10%.  

  • Other exit polls reported up to 61% of Muslim voting for Harris and 30% voting for Trump.

  • In 2020, CAIR exit polling reported 69% voting for Biden, and an Emgage exit poll reported 86% voting for Biden. 

  • As of February 2024, CAIR estimated that there are 2.5 million Muslim voters in the U.S.

• MICHIGAN-SPECIFIC: CAIR polling found that 59% of Muslims voters reported voting for Dr. Jill Stein; 22% voted for Trump; and 14% voted for Harris. 

• How Arab Americans Reported Voting

  • NATIONAL: I could not find any exit polls on Arab Americans nationally. I expect the Arab American Institute to release some analysis on national voting in the election in the coming weeks. 

  • MICHIGAN-SPECIFIC: In Eastern Dearborn, 45% reported voting for Trump; 30% voted for Stein; and 23% voted for Harris.

  • There are estimated to be 3.7 million Arab Americans. 

Here are some of the initial reports about Muslim and Arab American voters and the election:

• ‘We Warned You,’ Arab Americans in Michigan Tell Kamala Harris

• Democrats Lost 22,000 Votes in Michigan’s Heavily Arab American Cities

• Arab Americans Who Supported Trump Send Him a Letter Urging for a Ceasefire in Gaza and Lebanon

• Five Takeaways from the 2024 Exit Polls

Election 2024: A Readout of the Results & Implications for the Future

The election results represent a nightmare scenario at the federal level: the Republicans won not only the presidency, but also both chambers of Congress - the Senate and the House of Representatives (full results here). That means that not only does Donald Trump oversee and use the powers of the executive branch of government, but his Project 2025 agenda will have no checks from the legislative branch of government (Congress). 

Similarly, Congress will have no checks on the Republican majority’s white supremacist, anti-immigrant, anti-women, anti-trans, anti-LGBTQIA+, and Christian nationalist agenda – everything insane the legislative branch passes will be signed into law by the next President, Donald Trump.

Additionally, the Supreme Court of the U.S. (SCOTUS) has had a conservative super- majority since 2020 which has been exceedingly problematic for the last four years. Any judges that retire or die on the bench will be replaced by Trump and guaranteed to be picks that uphold the conservative majority. Trump and the Republicans have effectively had control of the highest court in the U.S. since 2020. What’s more is that Trump will be able to appoint more conservative judges to federal courts, effectively continuing what he did in his first term in totally reshaping the federal judiciary and this branch of government. Federal judges serve for life.  

If all of this makes you want to jump off of a bridge, please don’t. Yes, it is bad but please remember that Trump being elected in 2016 resulted in a literal Blue tsunami in the 2018 midterm elections in which Democrats took back the House of Representatives. That was the same election that saw The Squad elected into office, including AOC, Rashida Tlaib, and Ilhan Omar. However, Democrats were not able to win control of the Senate in that election. 

The next two years are guaranteed to be painful. But if the Democratic Party analyzes its mistakes honestly - acknowledging that it kowtowed to corporate interests and billionaires over the needs of working people, and sold its soul, ignoring its base in its own administration’s complicity in Israel’s genocide in Gaza, it has a chance to address the needs of the voters who have traditionally voted Democrat. 

As I said about Biden and then about Harris, the Democratic Party’s fate is in its own hands. The Establishment and current leadership need to be pushed out (they will never relinquish control willingly) for the Party to have a chance to become what it needs to be to serve the American people and win big in the future. 

Take Action Against Fascism: The “Non-Profit Killer” Bill - H.R. 9495

House Republicans are set to ram a bill through Congress next week that will empower the U.S. Treasury to revoke a non-profit’s tax-exempt status if it is identified as a “terrorist supporting organization.”

The House GOP are setting up for a Trump presidency and this legislation, H.R. 9495, will allow the law to be weaponized against any non-profit organization that is critical of the Trump administration or its policies, and this weaponization is specifically targeting non-profit organizations that advocate for Palestinian human rights. The ACLU and nearly 150 organizations have signed a letter opposing H.R. 9495 and Amnesty International also opposes it. 

The bill was voted on in the House earlier this week and failed to pass with the required two-thirds majority, but 52 Democrats shamelessly voted in favor of the bill. I hope each one of those Democrats is primaried in their next election. 

Please take action to protect civil society by sending a prepared letter to your representatives in Congress ASAP.

Up Next

Next week will be a significant week in terms of national policy impacting the SWANA community in America with both Senator Bernie Sanders Joint Resolution of Disapproval (JRD) forcing a vote to block U.S. arms sales to Israel in the U.S. Senate for the first time ever, and the House of Representatives taking another vote on H.R. 9495, the “non-profit killer” bill, in Rules Committee as early as Monday of next week.

Also, I haven’t even covered Trump’s cabinet picks yet – more to come!

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Additionally, I author a newsletter that is a round up of weekly SWANA community events in San Francisco and the wider Bay Area — sign up here.

Photo (Courtesy of AP Photo/Evan Vucci): When hell freezes over and pigs fly: President Biden, genocidaire of Gaza, meets with former President Donald Trump, rapist and convicted criminal, at the White House this week.