Trump Holds Narrow Lead With Arab Americans

The former President Donald Trump has found an unlikely well of support heading into the final stretch of the 2024 presidential election.

Despite Trump’s open support of Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu and Israel’s continued bombing campaigns in Gaza and Lebanon, polling finds that Arab Americans narrowly prefer Trump to Democratic nominee Kamala Harris.

A new poll released by YouGov and commissioned by Arab News Research and Studies finds Trump slightly ahead of Harris according to 500 Arab Americans who were queried. The results mirror a survey conducted by the Arab American Institute in early October which found Trump ahead of Harris by one point among Arab Americans. 

The bullish polling comes weeks after Amer Ghalib, a Democrat mayor in Hamtramck, Michigan endorsed Trump for president. Ghalib, a Muslim, is mayor of the only Muslim-run city in the country. 

“President Trump and I may not agree on everything, but I know he is a man of principles,” Ghalib wrote in a post on Facebook.

Trump has criticized Harris for campaigning with former Republican Liz Cheney who Trump claims “wants to go to war with every Muslim country known to mankind.”

“Arab Voters are very upset that Comrade Kamala Harris, the Worst Vice President in the History of the United States and a Low IQ individual, is campaigning with ‘dumb as a rock’ War Hawk, Liz Cheney,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social account on October 21.

Harris has struggled to distance himself from Biden’s support of Israel’s war on Gaza. In battleground states such as Michigan, where the election could come down to tens of thousands of votes, Harris has lost momentum with the key demographic and it could end up costing her the election. 

Trump and Harris are both far behind Green Party’s Jill Stein when Arab Americans are polled on the issue of Israel and Stein’s name is included. In August, a poll conducted by the Council on American-Islamic Relations found that 40 percent of respondents favored Stein to only 18 percent for Trump and 12 percent for Harris.