US Election Day: '200,000 Arab American voters in Michigan are potentially the kingmakers' in the state

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00:00Now, there are around 3.5 million Arab-American voters in the United States but all eyes are

00:06on the some 200,000 of them in the key swing state of Michigan.

00:13To talk a little bit about that community, how they might vote in this election, James

00:17Andre is with me in the studio now.

00:20And James, it's important to say first of all that both Harris and Trump have really

00:25been trying to woo this community.

00:27Yes, absolutely.

00:28And the reason for that is that there are 15 electoral college votes at stake, which

00:32of course is very important.

00:34They are pretty much required by both candidates if you want to make it to the famous 270 electoral

00:40college voters.

00:41Magic number.

00:43Now, 200,000 Arab-American voters in Michigan are potentially the kingmakers in this state

00:52simply because if you look at the previous figures, Biden won Michigan in 2020 by 150,000

00:59votes and Trump won in 2016 with 11,000.

01:04So given what the polls are looking like for the moment, it's obviously very difficult

01:11to call and it might be very close.

01:12We'll have to see what happens.

01:13In any case, the Arab-American community has been consistently Democrat for the past 20

01:20years.

01:21This time it might be a bit different simply because they are very frustrated and angry

01:25at Joe Biden's policies in the Middle East regarding the war with Gaza that's now extended

01:31to Lebanon.

01:32And indeed, these communities have been very much bulking what the current administration

01:36has been doing.

01:37You've got to remember that during the primaries, 110,000 members of this Arab-American community

01:43chose not to vote for Joe Biden, but to put uncommitted ballots in the boxes in order

01:49to show their distrust in the administration.

01:52So yes, Kamala Harris has been conducting meetings in the state of Michigan, clearly

02:02in Dearborn, which is very much the only Arab-American majority city in the United States, in order

02:08to try and convince them to vote for her, saying that she is less, in a sense, less

02:12pro-Israeli than Joe Biden is, that she is willing to shift that policy, that she wants

02:18a ceasefire, but also saying she wants a return of the hostages and security for Israel,

02:25but also stressing that she wants an independent state for the Palestinians.

02:29For Donald Trump, of course, it's even more difficult, given that he is seen as very much

02:33pro-Israeli and also that he enforced a Muslim ban back in 2016, as you remember, and that

02:38he's actually saying that he would expand on that in 2024.

02:40Yes, see, that's what's really interesting about this, James, is, you know, we do hear

02:45from these Arab-American voters in Michigan saying, we don't want to vote for Harris because

02:49of the Biden administration's record on the war in Gaza.

02:53But as you say, Donald Trump, a strong supporter of Israel, a strong supporter of Netanyahu.

02:57So are Arab-American voters there really likely to vote for Trump or will they instead abstain

03:05and stay at home?

03:06Well, it does appear a lot of them are thinking of very seriously voting for Trump.

03:10Now, there has been a push by Trump who has dispatched Massad Boulos, who is the father

03:17of his son-in-law, Mikael Boulos, who married Tiffany Trump in 2021.

03:21Actually, Donald Trump said that he was very happy to have a half-Lebanese grandson coming.

03:28So that was the message that he put through.

03:31And then there's also Richard Grenell, who is a potential secretary of state, or at least

03:36that's what he'd like to become, and he was Trump's ex-ambassador to Germany.

03:40These two men have been going across the Arab-American cities in Michigan and trying to convince

03:48the community, pitching this vision of a Trump who has changed and who is a peacemaker in

03:52the Middle East.

03:53And funnily enough, this has actually been working.

03:55If you look at the polls now, Arab News and YouGov have conducted a poll with 500 Arab-American

04:04voters.

04:05And what comes out of that poll is that 45 percent will say they will vote for Trump

04:10and 43 percent for Harris, despite the fact that the same group of people say, 69 percent

04:18of them say that they view Trump as more pro-Israeli, that also a vast majority of them consider

04:24that he would probably enforce more racist policies against Arab-Americans.

04:30But what they also see is that they consider that Harris has been in power for the past

04:35four years, that this war has been going on for a year and that the Biden-Harris administration

04:39has done nothing to stop it.

04:41So they feel that if she is elected, it would simply be more of the same.

04:44And what they're hoping is that indeed Donald Trump might indeed take some radical action

04:49to stop the war.

04:50He has said he would try and stop this war within a very short span of time if he is

04:56elected.

04:57And what they see is that, of course, yes, he is seen as very pro-Israeli, but potentially

05:02a game changer in the region.

05:04And also, well, it is rather a conservative community that also looks at the rest of his

05:10policies.

05:11So, counterintuitively, indeed, it appears that Arab-American Muslims, according to this

05:16poll anyway, might vote for Donald Trump in large numbers.

05:19All right.

05:20Well, we'll see whether that poll pans out when we do get the results from Michigan.

05:25Thank you very much indeed, James Andre, for us there.

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