Michigan Muslims are abandoning Kamala Harris

Election 2024 Israel Kamala Harris Michigan palestine Politics Uncommitted US

October 3, 2024 - 10:00am

Imran Salha proudly declared himself “the first Muslim Palestinian imam in America” to endorse Donald Trump for president. Salha, described in previous media reports as a “prominent” Detroit imam, made the endorsement in late September after a meeting with Massad Boulos, Tiffany Trump’s father-in-law. Boulos, a wealthy businessman born in Lebanon, has been working hard to make inroads with the Muslim community on Trump’s behalf.

“Michigan Arabs are coming out for Trump,” Richard Grenell, a staunch ally of the former president, posted on X last week. Amer Ghalib, the mayor of America’s only Muslim-led city, endorsed Trump just days before, landing him another boost in Michigan.

Salha, though, quickly rescinded his endorsement. In an Instagram post, the imam explained that his enthusiastic video on Trump’s behalf had been “a statement to say that our vote for Trump would be best to punish democrats”. “I was not endorsing HIM, I was proving a point,” Salha wrote, adding that “out of respect to my community” he’d decided to rescind the endorsement.

Whether voting for Trump is seen by Michigan’s large Muslim community as the best way to “punish Democrats”, Kamala Harris will still be punished in one way or another. If Trump and Boulos don’t manage to win converts, the Uncommitted movement will surely make a dent in Democrats’ margins merely by persuading voters to stay home.

In a mid-September statement, Uncommitted — a group of delegates who sought to undermine Joe Biden during the primaries — declined to endorse Harris, attacking her “unwillingness” to meet their requests on US weapon policies and international law. The group also specifically said it did not recommend allies vote for a third party, at risk of “inadvertently” tossing the election to Trump.

But at least one poll found Green Party nominee Jill Stein with a commanding 28-point lead over Harris among Muslim voters nationwide. So strong is the frustration with Biden and Harris, the same survey found Trump with a six-point lead over the Vice President.

The maths in Michigan is very simple. Biden defeated Trump by 154,000 votes. Trump, the first Republican to win Michigan since 1988, defeated Hillary Clinton by 11,000 votes. According to Reuters: “The state is home to overlapping groups of more than 200,000 registered voters who are Muslim and 300,000 who report ancestry from the Middle East and North Africa.” So between Stein, Trump, and the option to just stay home, Harris’s inability to smooth over these simmering tensions could cost her 16 critical electoral college votes even if she loses the state’s popular vote by Clinton’s tiny margin.

In Michigan, Harris is currently up by about a point in the RealClearPolitics polling average, and is mostly on an upwards trajectory in the state, polling much better than Biden ever did this cycle. But even as Biden coasted to a primary victory back in February, more than 100,000 Michigan voters cast “uncommitted” ballots in protest. Clinton, it’s worth remembering, lost by 11,000.

Emily Jashinsky is UnHerd‘s Washington D.C. Correspondent.