Michigan
Matthew Petti | 11.6.2024 9:45 AM
Perhaps Vice President Kamala Harris thought she could take Michigan's Middle Eastern communities for granted. In a state with a huge Iraqi-American community, Harris touted the endorsement of former Vice President Dick Cheney—who helped destroy Iraq—and campaigned alongside his equally neoconservative daughter, former Republican congresswoman Liz Cheney. And in a state with a huge Lebanese- and Palestinian-American community, one of the Harris campaign's closing messages was a pro-Israel rant delivered by former President Bill Clinton.
The Uncommitted movement, which represented around 100,000 dissatisfied Democrats in Michigan, warned that Harris would have to give at least a symbolic concession to Palestinian rights in order for those voters to come home. Democratic leadership brushed off the risks, arguing that the wars in the Middle East wouldn't be a salient issue. After all, former President Donald Trump "wants to put a ban on Arabs coming into the country," President Joe Biden said. "We'll make sure we understand who cares about the Arab population." What would Arab Americans do? Vote for Trump?
The answer, it turns out, was yes. Trump won around 42 percent of the vote in Dearborn, a heavily Arab suburb of........