{"id":24331,"date":"2024-03-01T00:08:46","date_gmt":"2024-03-01T06:08:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=24331"},"modified":"2024-03-01T00:08:56","modified_gmt":"2024-03-01T06:08:56","slug":"michigans-largest-arab-american-cities-reject-biden-over-his-handling-of-israel-hamas-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=24331","title":{"rendered":"Michigan\u2019s largest Arab American cities reject Biden over his handling of Israel-Hamas war"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

DEARBORN, Mich. (AP) \u2014 Dearborn and two other Michigan cities with large Arab and Muslim populations turned against President Joe Biden in the state\u2019s primary after Democratic leaders there warned for months that voters were angry about his handling of the Israel-Hamas war<\/u><\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While Biden won the state<\/u><\/a> with more than 623,000 votes, the results in Dearborn, Dearborn Heights and Hamtramck highlight the challenge<\/u><\/a> his reelection campaign faces in a swing state that each major party has said they must win to take the White House in November. More than 100,000 Michigan Democratic primary voters cast ballots for \u201cuncommitted\u201d in the race, enough to pick up two delegates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn the city of Dearborn we have demonstrated that the issue of Gaza is not an issue that is only of concern to Arab Americans and Muslim Americans. But this is an issue to all Americans from coast to coast,\u201d Dearborn\u2019s Democratic mayor, Abdullah Hammoud, told a crowd Tuesday night as votes rolled in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Indeed, the \u201cuncommitted\u201d push is expected in other states. Minnesota Democratic Gov. Tim Walz said Wednesday that a portion of Minnesota\u2019s Somali population, the largest in the country, is likely to vote \u201cuncommitted\u201d in his state\u2019s primary next week. Additionally, a nationwide \u201cAbandon Biden\u201d campaign<\/u><\/a> has seen momentum in other key swing states.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/a>In 2020, Biden enjoyed a roughly 3-to-1 advantage in Dearborn, where nearly half of the city\u2019s 110,000 residents are of Arab descent. In recent months, the city has become the epicenter of Democratic backlash<\/u><\/a> to Biden\u2019s support of Israel in the war in Gaza<\/u><\/a> that began after Hamas\u2019 Oct. 7 attack.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/a>U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib, who represents Dearborn and is the first Palestinian American woman to serve in Congress, advocated loudly for the \u201cuncommitted\u201d vote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Biden<\/u><\/a> dispatched senior officials from both his campaign<\/u><\/a> and administration<\/u><\/a> to the Dearborn area in recent months, aiming to address the backlash.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet close to 6,500 Dearborn voters cast their vote \u201cuncommitted,\u201d totaling 56% of the vote to Biden\u2019s 40%. The results were even starker in Muslim-majority Hamtramck, where \u201cuncommitted\u201d received 61% of the total vote. Hamtramck voted for Biden in 2020 by a 5-to-1 margin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

California Rep. Ro Khanna, a Biden surrogate who has called for a cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war, traveled to Dearborn last week to speak with community leaders. He said Tuesday\u2019s results showed that the Biden campaign has \u201ca lot of work to do.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is showing that there are particular groups of our coalition that are upset,\u201d Khanna said. \u201cThe White House understands that they\u2019ve got to make certain changes in language and action to win back voters in the Arab and Muslim American community and young voters.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hammoud and other top Arab American leaders were joined by dozens of supporters at an election night watch party at a restaurant in Dearborn to eat, dance and celebrate as the \u201cuncommitted\u201d votes rolled in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many organizers immediately called the primary results a success, as the campaign\u2019s goal of 10,000 \u201cuncommitted\u201d votes was accomplished soon after polls closed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt is not surprising that it grew this big. And we are just celebrating this victory right now. And we need Joe Biden to listen to the voice of Michiganders,\u201d said Layla Elabed, a sister of Tlaib\u2019s and the campaign manager for Listen to Michigan, which led the \u201cuncommitted\u201d push.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Questions linger over whether the backlash could swing November\u2019s election. Trump and other Republicans also support Israel in its war with Hamas. And while Michigan\u2019s Arab American population is the largest in the nation by density, it represents just under 3% of the entire state\u2019s population.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unofficial results put the \u201cuncommitted\u201d total at close to 13% of overall vote in Michigan\u2019s Democratic primary. In 2012, during Barack Obama\u2019s reelection bid, \u201cuncommitted\u201d received nearly 21,000 votes, 11% of the total.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Apnews<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

DEARBORN, Mich. (AP) \u2014 Dearborn and two other Michigan cities with large Arab and Muslim populations turned against President Joe Biden in the state\u2019s primary after Democratic leaders there warned for months that voters were angry about his handling of the Israel-Hamas war. While Biden won the state with more than 623,000 votes, the results in Dearborn, Dearborn […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":24332,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1153],"tags":[26928,1169,1613,1239,1868],"class_list":["post-24331","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-military","tag-arab-americans","tag-biden","tag-election","tag-israel","tag-michigan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24331","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24331"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24331\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24333,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24331\/revisions\/24333"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/24332"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24331"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}