In 2020, Donald Trump received less than 30% of the vote in Dearborn, Michigan. He received just 10% of the vote in the two precincts in the south end of Dearborn, where the heaviest concentration of Arab-Americans live.
However, after Trump's blitz of Dearborn and other Arab-American towns in the last two months of the campaign, his outreach to the community paid off handsomely. Trump won a plurality of votes in Dearborn by 43%-36% over Harris. Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate, received 18% of the vote. Trump was expected to win the two heavily Arab-American precincts in Dearborn when all the votes are counted. Trump also won a plurality of votes in Dearborn Heights, another heavily Muslim community.
In Hamtramck, Mayor Amer Ghalib had endorsed him. In 2020, Biden won 85% of the vote in the Arab-American working-class town. In 2024, Trump lost by only 4 points, 46%-42% this time.
"Whoever loves, supports, and trusts our leadership, vote Trump," said Ghalib in a letter to his supporters. "Please go out and vote, it’s an opportunity for our community to advance to the top. Don’t lose this opportunity. If you trust my leadership, please vote for Trump."
The three mayors with the highest percentage of Arab Americans — Dearborn, Dearborn Heights and Hamtramck — did not endorse Harris. Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud did not endorse any candidate, Ghalib backed Trump and Dearborn Heights Mayor Bill Bazzi endorsed Trump, appearing on stage with him in Novi. Ghalib and Bazzi spoke at Trump's last campaign rally Monday night in Grand Rapids.
In Dearborn, there was frustration with the Democrats before the war in Gaza, as protesters demonstrated against some LGBTQ+ books in public schools they saw too explicit, resulting in Democrats losing support in heavily-Muslim precincts in Dearborn in November 2022.
Trump's support wasn't all due to the Gaza War. Muslim parents in Michigan gained national attention in 2022 when they protested what they described as "sexually explicit" LGBTQ books in school libraries.
"We have to fix our problems here in America," Nagi Almudhegi of Dearborn said outside Salina Intermediate School. "If you're a parent, you want to take care of your family. You want to take care of your children first, before you go and take care of your neighbors and somebody overseas or abroad. It's just logical common sense.… The leaders of the United States have to take care of the citizens of the United States. Why are we worried about every single problem in the world when we have so many systemic issues here in the U.S.?"
Trump's America First opportunity agenda is very attractive to immigrants regardless of their ethnicity or religion. For that reason, Republicans have a real opportunity to make serious inroads in the Arab-American community.
The toxicity of Democrats extended beyond Harris and Biden. GOP Senate candidate Rep. Mike Rogers lost to U.S. Rep Elissa Slotkin, the Democratic nominee, by only two points, 41%-39% in Dearborn. Douglas Marsh of the Green Party got 15%.
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It's too early to say whether the Republicans can take advantage of Trump's opening to the Arab community. But it's there if he and the GOP reach for it.
Bill Bazzi was one of two Arab mayors to endorse the Republican presidential candidate, explaining Tuesday that the Middle East was a much calmer region when Trump was in office.
“During his administration, there were no new wars, and he worked to pull the US out of wars that previous administrations started,” Bazzi said.
A soft-spoken military veteran, Bazzi recalled growing up in southern Lebanon during a civil war in the 1970s, which also featured aerial bombardments from Israel.
Many Arab Americans still have relatives in the region, and ending the wars in Lebanon and Gaza would put a lot of minds at ease in Dearborn and other Arab-American communities.
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