Video: Can Kamala Harris Find Voters In Dearborn?
“People here have families that are originally from the exact towns and villages that are being bombed with American weapons.”
Afeef Nessouli
Dearborn was the first majority Arab American city in the country, and it has the highest percentage of Arab Americans among all cities in the United States. In many ways, the Detroit suburb’s residents hold major power. Dearborn sits in the middle of a swing city in a swing state that could help determine the election. One route to the White House is believed to go through Michigan. In fact, the candidate who has won in Michigan has gone on to win the White House in nine out of the last 12 presidential elections.
Analysts like University of Michigan political scientist Jonathan Hanson project the state’s voters, a group that is frustrated by inflation and is typically made up of “lower middle-class or working-class voters who just don’t really pay attention to politics on a daily basis,” will be important to win the presidency.
President Joe Biden won Dearborn by a 3-to-1 margin in 2020, but many residents are infuriated with the Biden-Harris administration’s support for the genocide in Gaza and the widening regional war. In Michigan’s February Democratic Primary, more than 100,000 voters chose “Uncommitted,” launching a national movement.
Afeef Nessouli went to Dearborn, Michigan to talk to Arab voters who hold a lot of power in the upcoming election.
More than 80 protests have been held in the Detroit suburb over the past year in support of Palestine, Lebanon and Yemen. People here have families that are originally from the exact towns and villages that are being bombed with American weapons.
Now, Democrats worry that Biden and Harris’ support over Israel’s actions in the region will lead typically loyal voters to shift their votes to Trump or third-party candidates like Jill Stein — or skip the top of the ballot altogether. This could prove pivotal in Michigan, a state both parties see as a toss-up.
I decided to go to Dearborn and stop by the Harris campaign headquarters to see how it was going. But they said they wouldn’t talk to reporters. The question I have is about the challenges that the Harris campaign is facing in the days leading up to the election. In the primaries, More than 100,000 people cast “uncommitted” ballots from Michigan. And the effort to create an uncommitted movement started from the Arab Americans in Dearborn. So since the Democrats wouldn’t talk to me, I decided to talk to Layla Elabed, the cofounder of the Uncommitted Movement to get her perspective on the Harris campaigns strategy for Dearborn.
Layla Elabed: “I think they have done a lot of missteps, and one of the missteps that I think that they’re doing particularly in Michigan within the Arab and Muslim community in Dearborn is that they are trying to win this election, they are trying to win over Michigan without their base. They’re courting Republican voters who don’t wanna vote for Trump, they’re courting a Dick Cheney endorsement campaigning alongside Liz Cheney you know sending people like Richie Torres to come to Michigan and talk to Democratic voters and I just think that they are making the calculation that they can win a state like Michigan without their base and I think that’s a huge mistake.”
People like Yasmeen Kadouh agree. She says the problem is that there is a lot of pain and sensitivity when it comes to the election.
Yasmeen Kadouh: “The amount of people that I Know that have lost their childhood homes, have lost their relatives, have lost their sense of security when it comes to the place that they love and the place that they come from is something that I don’t think our community can reconcile now. I think there’s so much deep seated pain. We’ve spent the last year advocating, talking to political leaders and really just putting our communities needs at the forefront without being listened to, without being heard and feeling like everybody is putting us to the side and just expects us to vote the way that they want us to vote.”
But there are Arab American volunteers for the Harris campaign. And some told me they’d been here for days trying to canvass to get out the vote for Harris. People like Salem Almaani came from out of town to convince Arab Americans in Michigan that Harris is the better candidate. He says after canvassing, he believes that nonjudgmental dialogue could move the needle and that a lot of those he spoke to were open about their pain and grief but also open to hearing his take on the importance of voting for Harris.
Salem Almaani: “So canvassing has been actually a really healthy experience. People are open, they’re receptive, there’s a general sentiment of sadness, but also people are staying true to their like moral and their roots and being empathetic and passionate and polite when having those conversations so that’s why dialogue goes a long way and thats what im trying to help manage here is to have this dialogue between folks to share their experiences, what they’re feeling and help educate on another and move forward as a collective unit rather than as separate pieces.”
Ultimately, there’s an uphill battle here. Just a few days ago, Republican candidate Donald Trump was the first major candidate to visit this incredibly important town. He visited a halal cafe and had a rally in a neighboring area called Warren. From what I could tell, there was a lot of support for him. So now the question is whether Harris will be able to win without creating distance between her and President Biden’s support of a war that has cost tens of thousands of lives and affected nearly every single Arab American in Dearborn.
