On election night, at a political watch party, Abbas Alawieh, a Palestinian-American from Dearborn, Michigan, felt zero surprise as he saw Donald Trump outperform his 2020 numbers in county after county, pulling off a nightlong march to victory.

Alawieh, a lifelong Democrat and onetime chief of staff for Rep. Cori Bush, has spent years mobilizing Democratic voters in Dearborn. Earlier this year, frustrated by Biden’s steadfast support for Israel, he and two fellow Palestinian Americans co-founded Listen to Michigan, a coalition urging local voters to send Biden a message by voting “uncommitted” in the Democratic primary. More than 100,000 voters did, hoping to push Biden to reconsider his stance on Gaza.

When that didn’t work, even after Kamala Harris took over the ticket, the movement expanded nationwide, sending 30 uncommitted delegates to the Democratic National Convention, where Alawieh, a Michigan delegate, personally urged Democratic leadership to allow a Palestinian American speaker at the convention. “We were asking Democratic leadership to empower us,” Alawieh said. “They flat-out said, ‘No, thanks. We’re good without you.’ I’d hoped that, whatever calculus they were making, there were some 101,000 Liz Cheney voters out there somewhere they were catering to. It turns out those voters don’t exist.”

Dearborn, the heavily Arab American and Muslim American city, is still coming to terms with Trump’s election victory. The former president won there with 42.5 percent of the vote, compared to Harris’ 36 percent. Jill Stein, who chose a Muslim American running mate, captured 18 percent. In neighboring Dearborn Heights, with another large Arab American community, Trump claimed 44 percent to Harris’s 38 perfect, marking a shift once unthinkable toward a man who had spent his first run for president demonizing Muslims in America and enacting a Muslim ban during his first term in office. (Until now, no Republican for president had won in Dearborn since George W. Bush in 2000.)

For a city long seen as the heart of Arab American political influence, Trump’s success here highlighted a growing gap between Democratic leadership and the communities that once formed its base.

Alawieh couldn’t bring himself to vote for Trump; he voted for Harris. But he didn’t necessarily want her to win either. “I wanted her to beat Trump, but Harris winning would mean my........

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