Former President Donald Trump garnered more support from Arab Americans than Vice President Kamala Harris has, continuing a dramatic departure from past political norms, a new poll showed.
Trump bested Harris 46% to 42% among likely Arab American voters as the Democratic presidential nominee scrambles to win back the key bloc amid friction over the Israel-Hamas war, according to an Arab American Institute survey.
Among the broader sample of Arab Americans, which includes individuals who aren’t likely to vote, Trump’s margin shrinks, but he still retains the advantage, 42% to 41%.
In the past, Arab American voter turnout has hovered around 80%, but the most recent poll found that a much smaller 63% are enthusiastic about casting their ballots this cycle.
Historically, Democrats have had a toehold on support from Arab Americans, with roughly a two-to-one advantage relative to Republicans over the last decade and a half, per the Arab American Institute, an organization that studies the minority group.
Back in 2020, Biden is believed to have won roughly 60% of Arab American support, per exit polling data.
However, Democrats’ support among Arab Americans has winnowed dramatically since the Oct. 7, 2023 massacre that killed 1,200 Israelis and sparked a war in the Gaza Strip.
Biden, 81, had stared down considerable defections among his base of support, with hundreds of thousands marking themselves as some iteration of uncommitted during the Democratic primary in an act of rebellion.
Harris, 59, inherited that baggage when she rose to the top of the ticket due to the Harris-Biden administration’s support for Israel in the conflict.
“In our thirty years of polling Arab American voters, we have not witnessed anything like the role that the war on Gaza is having on voter behavior,” the Arab American Institute explained.
If Harris were to demand an immediate ceasefire, 54% of all Arab American sampled would back her, per the poll. This includes 72% of Arab American Muslims.
Meanwhile, if Trump, 78, were to push for an immediate ceasefire, 50% of Arab Americans sampled would back him, according to the survey.
Both Harris and Biden have pushed for a ceasefire. US officials at the State Department and elsewhere have underscored that both sides of the conflict would need to agree to a ceasefire in order to obtain an actual pause in the fighting.
The hemorrhaging for Democrats among Arab Americans went beyond the presidential contest.
A considerable 46% of Arab American voters writ large would prefer a Republican-controlled Congress, compared to 43% who want Democrats in charge.
Moreover, party identification among Arab Americans is split evenly at 38% apiece, the poll found.
Some Democrats have been frustrated by the defections over the Israel-Hamas war due to the GOP’s traditionally staunch support of the Jewish state.
During his 2016 campaign, Trump pitched a ban on Muslims entering the US, though he later enacted a scaled-back travel ban that pertained to specific countries.
Defections from Arab Americans could pose a considerable obstacle for Harris in the key battleground state of Michigan, which has the largest population of Arab Americans in the country.
Harris has a 1.9 percentage point edge in Michigan against Trump, according to the most recent RealClearPolitics aggregate of multi-candidate polling.
Despite Democrats having control of the governorship and state legislature in Michigan, top party luminaries are concerned about Harris’ prospects there.
“I’m not feeling my best right now about where we are on Kamala Harris in a place like Michigan,” Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) said during a virtual fundraiser, Axios reported Sunday.
“We have her underwater in our polling.”
There are about 200,000 Arab Americans in Michigan. In the key battleground state of Georgia, there are 100,000 Americans.
The Harris-Walz campaign has been conducting outreach to the group, hoping to regain its footing ahead of the Nov. 5 presidential election.
The Arab American Institute sampled 500 Arab Americans between Sept. 9 and Sept. 20 with a margin of error of plus or minus 4.5 percentage points.
Other polling has similarly shown Trump making considerable gains among Arab and Muslim American voters.
For example, Trump notched 30% support compared to 62% for Harris of Muslim American voters, per a survey by the Rainey Center released last month.
