How despair over Gaza war helped Donald Trump win Dearborn. It’s complicated
- Despair over the Gaza war helped Donald Trump win Dearborn, an Arab-American enclave
- Trump is a staunch ally of Israel, but the Republican prevailed in part because of protest votes
- Trump wooed Muslim leaders and promised, without detail, to bring peace to Mideast
DEARBORN — For years, Nagi Almudhegi quietly supported Donald Trump, viewing the Republican former president as “anti-establishment.”
But come election time, the 50-year-old IT analyst still voted Democrat in other races, feeling the party’s values aligned with his. He began to question that loyalty in 2022, when Democratic leaders failed to stand up for parents outraged at sexually-explicit material at Dearborn Public Schools.
Almudhegi said the betrayal deepened with the Gaza War, tens of thousands of civilian deaths and Democratic President Joe Biden’s continued support for Israel.
This year, Almudhegi said, “I'm like ‘I'm 100% voting for Trump, and I'm going to convince every single person I know, every single family member I know, to vote for Trump, too.”
He wasn’t alone.
In a Tuesday’s election marked by historic shifts that tilted Michigan rightward, Trump won by increasing his margins in key communities that don’t always vote Republican.
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Exhibit A: Trump, a staunch Israel ally who once said it should “finish the job” in Gaza, narrowly won Dearborn, one of the nation’s biggest Arab-American enclaves.
Some 55% of residents in the Wayne County city of 105,000 are of Middle Eastern descent. Many, like Almudhegi, said they were motivated to vote by Biden’s foreign policy.
While the results in Dearborn played a minor role in Vice President Kamala Harris’ 82,000-vote loss, they are emblematic of Trump’s unconventional path to victory in Michigan.
Among other victories, Trump also managed to increase his support in Detroit, one of the nation’s most reliably Democratic cities.
In Dearborn, Trump took 42%, while Harris had 36%, four years after Biden received nearly 69%. Green Party nominee Jill Stein, who campaigned against the Gaza war, carried 18%
Some residents acknowledged support for Trump was a protest vote but felt they had no other way to make their voices heard.
"We're swallowing a bitter pill, and we're doing it to punish the genocide," said Samraa Luqman, a Yemeni-American. "There's maybe a bit of hope with Trump now. There's no hope with the Democrats — zero.”
Worries about what is next
Others in Dearborn are worried what may come of their support.
In February, Abbas Alawieh co-founded what became the Uncommitted National Movement, an effort that helped persuade more than 100,000 Michigan Democratic primary voters to vote “uncommitted” to send a message to Biden.
At a media event the day after the election, Alawieh said he fears the election will bring a “nightmare” for civilians in the Middle East that “probably gets a whole lot worse in ways that we are not even sure about.”
Alawieh called Trump a “purveyor of hate and white supremacy like fascism.” As president, Trump attempted to restrict travel into the country from predominantly Muslim countries.
Trump had gained traction, Alawieh said, “because of the failure to lead on behalf of Democratic Party officials,” who said he has family members in Lebanon.
“Donald Trump was happy to step in and offer change by masquerading as a pro-peace candidate,” he told Bridge on Wednesday.
The shift was an about-face for voters like Luqman, a mother of two who has fought for environmental cleanup and other traditionally Democratic efforts.
The movement to Trump came despite the urgings of several prominent community leaders.
The Arab American News asked readers to vote, but leave ballots blank for the presidential and US Senate races.
The Uncommitted Movement declined to endorse Harris, even as leaders urged voters to block a second Trump term and avoid voting for third-party candidates in swing states.
Alawieh had called the non-endorsement "something we have to do."
Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud told the National Public Radio podcast Code Switch that “the last thing I ever want to see is a Trump presidency,” but could not endorse Harris.
Voters in his community are “going to try to vote their moral conscience, whatever that means,” he said. “Each person defines it for themselves. I'm not here to define it for anybody.”
Trump lobbies leaders
Even so, it’s “absolutely not the case,” to say Trump only won Dearborn as a protest, said political strategist Adrian Hemond, who argued Trump worked hard for residents’ votes.
“Dearborn is a great example of how there were voters that were persuaded to vote for Donald Trump,” he said.
In the final week of the campaign, Trump visited a Dearborn cafe, the first Republican presidential candidate to visit the city since 2000. He repeatedly invited imams and other community figures to his events.
Trump also was endorsed by Dearborn Heights Mayor Bill Bazzi and Hamtramck Mayor Amer Ghalib, who are both Arab American.
Trump won the nearby city of Dearborn Heights, but narrowly lost the Detroit enclave of Hamtramck, where the majority Muslim city council split evenly between endorsing him and Harris.
Trump has promised, without any detail, to achieve peace in the Middle East.
Now that he is president-elect, time will tell if he makes that effort — or doubles down on comments and actions that seemed to have singled out immigrants and Muslims, said Luqman, the community activist.
“There are things that he said, and I'm sure he meant them at those times,” she said. “What I can hope is that going forward, he's turning over a new leaf.”
Both Democrats and Republicans, in fact, face a “reckoning” now, she added:
“There is political strength here, and you are going to have to adhere to some of our red lines and when we say they can not be crossed.”
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