Can Harris Win Back Arab American Voters? The Door May Be Cracked Open.
In Muna Jondy’s family, every topic is fair game on the WhatsApp thread.
The 40-person chat, which includes Ms. Jondy’s brothers, sisters, nieces and nephews, discusses everything: the Drake and Kendrick Lamar rivalry, Ohio State-Michigan football superiority and, of course, politics.
The discussion of President Biden’s re-election campaign was a common theme this year as the administration’s support for Israel in the war in Gaza alienated many Muslim and Arab American families, including the Jondys.
But the mood shifted when Mr. Biden dropped out of the race and Vice President Kamala Harris became the presumptive Democratic nominee. The family took notice last week when Ms. Harris said she would not look away from images of dead children or be silent about the tragedies in Gaza.
“Am I crazy or is this way more than Biden ever was willing to say?” Ms. Jondy’s niece messaged the group. Others in the chat were more skeptical: “Would be nice, but unless I see an explicit change in policy I won’t believe it.”
The WhatsApp chat is typical of the conversations happening among Arab Americans across the country who turned away from Mr. Biden over the war in Gaza, which has killed more than 36,000 people over the past 10 months. In crucial battleground states like Michigan, where Ms. Jondy’s family lives, many people who voted for Mr. Biden in 2020 said they felt betrayed and joined protest movements that challenged his campaign.
Ms. Harris may have an opportunity to change the conversation. While she has not strayed from Mr. Biden on Israel policy since she began her own campaign for the presidency, she has struck a stronger tone on the suffering of Palestinians.
“Where the door was closed with President Biden, the door has slightly cracked open with Kamala Harris,” said Abdullah Hammoud, the first Arab American mayor of Dearborn, Mich. “I think the cracking of the door really allows an opportunity for meaningful dialogue.”
Osama A. Siblani, the publisher of the Dearborn-based Arab American News, said Arab Americans’ votes in Michigan were up for grabs at the moment.
“If she’s interested in our votes, we’re interested in her opinion,” said Mr. Siblani, who added that he was also willing to hear out former President Donald J. Trump, who has a history of using anti-Muslim language and banned travel from several predominantly Muslim countries while in office.
Support for Ms. Harris will not be automatic, he said.
“We don’t have any bad ideas about Kamala Harris, or good ideas,” Mr. Siblani said. “We are trying right now to hear her and to have a conversation with her.”
Another factor that may shape perceptions of Ms. Harris on the issue is her choice of running mate. Among the top contenders is Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, who has been a steadfast supporter of Israel and has been critical of some pro-Palestinian protests.
Ms. Harris’s campaign declined to comment for this article.
According to an estimate by the outreach group Emgage, Michigan has more than 200,000 registered voters who are Muslim, which could be enough to swing the state. (Mr. Biden won Michigan by more than 154,000 votes in 2020.) There are also sizable Arab American populations in Virginia, Minnesota and Pennsylvania, which are also battleground states.
But Mr. Biden’s support has slipped because of the war, which began after Hamas’s Oct. 7 assault on southern Israel that killed about 1,200 people.
Mr. Biden generally has paired broad support for Israel’s war with criticism of certain battlefield tactics. But anger over his approach — and U.S. weapons shipments to Israel — erupted on college campuses and on the streets of American cities. Protest groups like the “uncommitted” and Abandon Biden movements quickly gained steam.
The Biden administration tried to make inroads with Arab and Muslim American communities, particularly as pro-Palestinian protesters became a frequent, disruptive presence at Mr. Biden’s public events.
In April, when Mr. Biden hosted a gathering to mark the end of Ramadan, Dr. Thaer Ahmad, a Palestinian American emergency room physician, handed Mr. Biden a letter from an 8-year-old girl in Gaza who had lost her family in the war.
After speaking for about six minutes, Dr. Ahmad told the president he was leaving “out of respect for my community.”
Dr. Ahmad recalled that Ms. Harris had appeared engaged and empathetic when he described the plight of Palestinians. But he said that a simple change in candidates, and a shift in tone, would not make a difference for him.
“Slogans and phrases are not going to do it,” he said. “There has to be a willingness to acknowledge the policy failures over the last several months, and naturally what are the concrete steps that will be taken to avoid a repeat of these failures.”
Nada Al-Hanooti, a Dearborn-based organizer for Emgage, which aims to mobilize Muslim voters, said Ms. Harris needed to differentiate her approach from Mr. Biden’s.
She said she was heartened when Ms. Harris declined to preside over a speech before Congress last month by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, as is traditional for the vice president.
Ms. Harris cited a scheduling conflict for missing the speech, but she held a private meeting with Mr. Netanyahu afterward. In a sign of how she is trying to strike a balance on the conflict, she emerged from the meeting to offer strong support for Israel’s right to defend itself but declared that “far too many innocent civilians” had died in Gaza.
Voters like Ms. Al-Hanooti said they would be watching Ms. Harris closely going forward.
“I am a Palestinian American, Muslim Democrat,” she said. “I want to vote Democrat. I also want to vote my conscience, and I want to make sure that who I am voting for shares my values and shares the values of cease-fire, and shares the values of Palestinian self-determination, and shares our values of human rights.”
James Zogby, whose Arab American Institute has done several polls tracking Arab American voter sentiment over the past year, cautioned that the community contained varied perspectives, including some pro-Trump voices.
But he acknowledged that Ms. Harris had an opportunity to capture voters who had gone for Mr. Biden in 2020 but changed their minds over Gaza. “I think if she takes advantage of the opportunity, and changes direction, and makes it clear that a Harris administration would be different, she has the chance of peeling that back,” he said.
That includes Ms. Jondy, an attorney and longtime Democrat who has given to Democratic candidates.
“I was torn,” said Ms. Jondy, who lives in a suburb of Flint, Mich., and whose parents are Syrian and Palestinian. Before Mr. Biden dropped out, she considered not voting at all.
“I honestly didn’t have clarity of what I was going to do because I do believe that he has blood on his hands,” she said of Mr. Biden.
The turn against Mr. Biden was particularly apparent on social media.
Soon after Mr. Biden’s announcement that he was stepping down, the Syrian American comedian Nasser Al-Rayess took to Instagram with a video showing him dancing in the street to a popular Arabic song under a headline that read: “Me to Joe Biden after he dropped out of the election.”
The video has more than 800,000 views.
Ms. Jondy said she was anxious to hear how Ms. Harris talks about Gaza and whom she selects for vice president.
“As of today,” she said, “she has my vote.”
Mitch Smith contributed reporting.
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