Can Harris win back Arab American voters? The door may be cracked open

SAN FRANCISCO - In Ms Muna Jondy’s family, every topic is fair game on the WhatsApp thread.

The 40-person chat, which includes Ms Jondy’s brothers, sisters, nieces and nephews, discusses everything: the Drake and Kendrick Lamar rivalry, Ohio State-Michigan football superiority and, of course, politics.

The discussion of

President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign

was a common theme in 2024 as the administration’s support for Israel in the war in the Gaza Strip alienated many Muslim and Arab American families, including the Jondys.

But the mood shifted when Mr Biden dropped out of the race and Vice-President Kamala Harris became the presumptive Democratic nominee. The family took notice recently when Ms Harris said she would not look away from images of dead children or be silent about the tragedies in Gaza.

“Am I crazy or is this way more than Biden ever was willing to say?,” Ms Jondy’s niece messaged the group. Others in the chat were more sceptical: “Would be nice, but unless I see an explicit change in policy, I won’t believe it.”

The WhatsApp chat is typical of the conversations happening among Arab Americans across the country who turned away from Mr Biden over the Israel-Hamas war, which has killed more than 36,000 people over the past 10 months.

In crucial battleground states such as Michigan, where Ms Jondy’s family lives, many people who voted for Mr Biden in 2020 said they felt betrayed and joined protest movements that challenged his campaign.

Ms Harris may have an opportunity to change the conversation. Although she has not strayed from Mr Biden on Israel policy since she began her own campaign for the presidency, she has struck a

stronger tone on the suffering of Palestinians

.

“Where the door was closed with President Biden, the door has slightly cracked open with Kamala Harris,” said Mr Abdullah Hammoud, the first Arab American mayor of Dearborn, Michigan. “I think the cracking of the door really allows an opportunity for meaningful dialogue.”

Mr Osama A Siblani, publisher of Dearborn-based Arab American News, said Arab Americans’ votes in Michigan were up for grabs at the moment.

“If she’s interested in our votes, we’re interested in her opinion,” said Mr Siblani, who added that he was also willing to hear out former President Donald Trump, who has a history of using anti-Muslim language and banned travel from several predominantly Muslim countries while in office.

Support for Ms Harris will not be automatic, he said.

“We don’t have any bad ideas about Kamala Harris, or good ideas,” Mr Siblani said. “We are trying right now to hear her and to have a conversation with her.”

According to an estimate by outreach group Emgage, Michigan has more than 200,000 registered voters who are Muslim, which could be enough to swing the state. Mr Biden won Michigan by more than 154,000 votes in 2020.

There are also sizeable Arab American populations in Virginia, Minnesota and Pennsylvania, which are also battleground states.

But Mr Biden’s support has slipped because of the war, which began after

Hamas’ Oct 7 assault on southern Israel

that killed about 1,200 people.

Mr Biden generally has paired broad support for Israel’s war with criticism of certain battlefield tactics. But anger over his approach – and US weapons shipments to Israel – erupted on college campuses and on the streets of American cities. Protest groups such as the “uncommitted” and Abandon Biden movements quickly gained steam.

Ms Nada Al-Hanooti, a Dearborn-based organiser for Emgage, which aims to mobilise Muslim voters, said Ms Harris needed to differentiate her approach from Mr Biden’s.

She said she was heartened when Ms Harris declined to preside over a speech before Congress in July by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as is traditional for the vice-president.

Ms Harris cited a scheduling conflict for missing the speech, but she held a private meeting with Mr Netanyahu afterward. In a sign of how she is trying to strike a balance on the conflict, she emerged from the meeting to offer strong support for Israel’s right to defend itself but declared that “far too many innocent civilians” had died in Gaza.

Voters like Ms Al-Hanooti said they would be watching Ms Harris closely going forward.

“I am a Palestinian American, Muslim Democrat,” she said. “I want to vote Democrat. I also want to vote my conscience, and I want to make sure that who I am voting for shares my values and shares the values of ceasefire, and shares the values of Palestinian self-determination, and shares our values of human rights.”

Mr James Zogby, whose Arab American Institute has done several polls tracking Arab American voter sentiment over the past year, cautioned that the community contained varied perspectives, including some pro-Trump voices.

But he acknowledged that Ms Harris had an opportunity to capture voters who had gone for Mr Biden in 2020 but changed their minds over Gaza. “I think if she takes advantage of the opportunity, and changes direction, and makes it clear that a Harris administration would be different, she has the chance of peeling that back,” he said.

That includes Ms Jondy, an attorney and longtime Democrat who has given to Democratic candidates.

“I was torn,” said Ms Jondy, who lives in a suburb of Flint, Michigan, and whose parents are Syrian and Palestinian. Before Mr Biden dropped out, she considered not voting at all.

“I honestly didn’t have clarity of what I was going to do because I do believe that he has blood on his hands,” she said of Mr Biden.

Ms Jondy said she was eager to hear how Ms Harris talks about Gaza and whom she selects for vice-president.

“As of today,” she said, “she has my vote.” NYTIMES