Politico’s Big Lie About Michigan’s Muslim Vote

In 2008, when Barack Obama defeated John McCain, a dramatic surge in the black vote fueled Obama's victory: black voters cast 16.6 million ballots — and black turnout exploded to 66.8%, “smashing the previous record of 58.5% in 1964.”

That mattered, because Obama won 95% of the black vote. 

Question for the peanut gallery: Why did John McCain do so gosh-durn poorly with black voters? What the heck did he do wrong?

If you just shook your head and thought, “What a stupid question,” congratulations: You’re smarter than the journalists at Politico.

Because obviously, John McCain’s absence of black support had very little to do with McCain himself. It wasn’t an indictment of his character or blowback for his policy proposals. 

That premise is absurd. Stupid! It’s demonstrably ignorant of U.S. history and voting patterns.

Because black voters weren’t voting AGAINST John McCain — they were voting FOR Barack Obama!

You know it. I know it. Anyone with an IQ higher than their air conditioning setting knows it.

But at Politico? Ha!

Politico: Trump Won the Heart of Michigan’s Arab Community. They’re Moving Away From Mike Rogers.

Four days before the 2024 election, Donald Trump declared in Dearborn, Michigan that “the Muslim population” is “liking Trump.” On Election Day, the state’s Arab Americans helped deliver Trump a victory.

Now, they want nothing to do with him — and are souring on the GOP overall.

Many Detroit-area Arab Americans, who swung hard to Trump over the war in Gaza and cost-of-living issues, are now saying they’re fed up with the ongoing war in Iran and slow peace process in Gaza. It’s a shift that could have direct consequences on the battle for Senate control, with former Michigan Rep. Mike Rogers fighting to hold onto Trump’s 2024 gains against Democrat Abdul El-Sayed, a Muslim whose parents are Egyptian immigrants.

Trump’s perceived broken promises — exacerbated by GOP attacks against El-Sayed that some see as Islamophobic and racist — are pushing these voters out of reach for Rogers.

First things first: Politico’s headline is using “Arab” as a stand-in for “Muslim.” That’s misleading.

Fun fact: 63% to 77% of Arab Americans are Christians. Only about 25% of Arab Americans are Muslims. (Because of immigration patterns, Michigan was 58% Christian and 42% Muslim back in 2003, but Michigan’s percentage of Muslims is almost certainly much higher today. Unfortunately, I was unable to find more current stats.)

This matters because Arab Christians and Arab Muslims have vastly different voting patterns: Arab Christians tend to be Republicans; Arab Muslims tend to be Democrats. 

It’s not a trivial distinction. Arab Christians — many of whom fled Islamic tyranny — are natural allies of the MAGA movement.

Muslims, on the other hand, seem to be natural allies of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). And not necessarily Arab Muslims, either. 

Just Muslims in general. (Like Mayor Zohran Mamdani, the Ugandan-born Muslim with parents of Indian descent.)

So let’s try to settle this “Arab Christian versus Arab Muslim” population conundrum in a roundabout way: By some estimates, Michigan had approximately 55 mosques in 2000. Today, it’s 127. 

Meanwhile, the number of Michigan churches has actually declined.

This means, even if hard stats are unavailable, that there’s ample reason to believe Michigan’s Muslim population is exploding.

So no, Politico: It’s not the “Arab community” that’s moving away from Mike Rogers. Try again.

It’s the rapidly-growing Muslim community.

And just like the black vote in 2008, there’s an obvious reason for that: Mike Rogers’ opponent is a Muslim named Abdul El-Sayed. He’s made his Muslim identity central to his campaign — with, in the words of Axios, opposing AIPAC his “centerpiece.”

It worked, too. 

On Aug. 4 in the Democratic primary, El-Sayed captured nearly 80% of the Muslim-majority community of Dearborn, Mich., and over 70% in nearby Dearborn Heights. He had super-majorities with Muslim voters.

Yet he only won the primary by a single point. 

Which means, without overwhelming Muslim support, he would’ve lost to Haley Stevens. 

So nobody should be surprised that Michigan Muslims are still supporting El-Sayed. The opposite is true: It would’ve been weird if they suddenly stopped.

The primary was less than a month ago!

Yet Politico suggests that Rogers’ lack of Muslim support is all Donald Trump’s fault:

A dip in support from Arab American former Trump voters could hurt Rogers’ path to election in what’s shaping up to be a tough year nationally for the GOP. And it could offset gains he makes in other communities — including with some Jewish voters who are wary of El-Sayed for his harsh criticism of Israel and comments from him and his allies that some see as antisemitic. Both communities matter significantly in close elections, and Michigan has the largest proportion of Arab Americans in the country, with nearly 400,000 living in the state, as well as more than 100,000 Jews.

Michigan Republicans — who, just two years ago, dreamed of building sustainable support among the state’s Arab American population — now see community leaders shifting ranks.

Question for Politico: Was Haley Stevens’ lack of Muslim support President Trump’s fault, too?

For some strange, mysterious reason, Politico ignored that question. (Can’t imagine why.) In fact, its next insinuation was that Rogers’ Muslim woes were because of his hateful, Islamophobic rhetoric:

Rogers has not shied away from branding his opponent as a Muslim extremist. He’s hammered El-Sayed for campaigning with Hasan Piker, a prominent and controversial left-wing influencer who’s drawn accusations of antisemitism, as well as slamming El-Sayed for responding to an attack on a Michigan synagogue earlier this year by condemning it but saying “hurt people hurt people” because members of the attacker’s family had been killed by the Israeli military in Lebanon.

El-Sayed has condemned antisemitism throughout his campaign; in a statement distancing himself from Piker last week, he said “Antisemitism is a scourge, and we need to address it in all its forms”) On Saturday he apologized for his remarks after the synagogue attack, telling a group of Jewish Democrats that he’d “made a mistake” and that “nobody deserves to have their pain trampled on.”

And not just Rogers. The whole dang National Republican Senatorial Committee is to blame:

The National Republican Senatorial Committee’s first ad of the general election called the Democratic nominee by his full name, Abdulrahman Mohamed El-Sayed.

The NRSC ad will “alienate and distance” potential Arab American supporters, said [Faye] Nemer.

“I most certainly will not support a candidate that is alienating and vilifying my community,” said Nemer, who met Trump during his 2024 visit to Dearborn. “I was fully prepared to support Mr. Rogers. … But after seeing the direction that he chose to proceed in, that’s given me a lot of pause.”

You have to go 22 paragraphs down before we get somewhat closer to the truth:

[Hassan] Nehme, the former state GOP vice chair, said many Arab Americans are drawn to El-Sayed because of his background, even though many are far more socially conservative than the Democratic nominee. “They’re not even really looking at politics anymore,” Nehme said.

[…]

“I’m hoping that they [Rogers/GOP] pull through and they come out and at least try to address the community,” Nehme said. “But in all actuality, I’m not sure how much good it’s going to do.”

Right: It would be a waste of time.

Because Michigan’s Muslims aren’t voting against Mike Rogers. They’re voting for El-Sayed.

The same way black voters were voting FOR Barack Obama!

So what explains Politico’s editorial decision to frame El-Sayed’s sky-high Muslim support as a Republican failure? 

Three things:

This wasn’t just a campaign story. It was an attempt by the mainstream media to redirect the PR narrative:

Donald Trump is so unpopular that he’s costing Rogers the race in Michigan! Don’t fret over Michigan’s Muslims voting as a bloc for a Muslim socialist candidate (or consider what this foretells nationally) — see, they’re only doing so because the GOP didn’t have enough meet-and-greets in Dearborn. Duh!

And stop drawing attention to El-Sayed’s antisemitism, support of Sharia law, or fixation on Israel! It’s a racist dog whistle!

We know that’s the takeaway Politico is pushing because of how it ended the article:

El-Sayed campaign spokesperson Cole Wozniak called attacks invoking El-Sayed’s faith and identity “cheap.”

“Mike Rogers is resorting to cheap attacks to distract from his deep record as a corrupt career politician who has taken millions from Big Pharma,” Wozniak said in a statement. “Michiganders see right through it, and they’re not going to let Mike Rogers distract from the fact he’s spent thirty years in Washington making himself and his billionaire donors richer while selling out working families.”

Without hearing directly from the Rogers campaign or state party leaders, Arab American voters say their community is likely to swing back to the left this election.

Could Rogers “go into Dearborn and have those conversations and fix that?” asked [Monica] Yatooma. “I think yeah, absolutely. I just don’t know if he’s doing it.”

Flip the narrative. Set the parameters of public discourse. Deny what’s obvious. Run interference on behalf of the Dems. Suggest stupid campaign tactics for Republicans.

It’s only August, and the mainstream media is already in late October form.

Buckle up, America: The 2026 midterms are only 64 days away — and the media’s propaganda campaign is fully underway.

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