This story was produced as part of the 2024 Elections Reporting Grant Program, organized by the Center for Community Media and funded by the Jonathan Logan Family Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation and the Tow Foundation.

Second-generation Palestinian immigrant Sonya Kassis views Vice President Kamala Harris as a “really qualified female candidate” for president and said she and Harris align on most issues. 

But the Garden City resident won’t be voting for Harris in November. 

Harris opposes halting U.S. weapons transfers to Israel, and for Kassis, that is a dealbreaker. She voted uncommitted in the February primary as a protest vote over the Biden administration arming Israel to carry out what she views as a genocide. 

“I would like to say that I voted for Kamala … but this is too big to overlook,” she said.

For many Arab-Americans, Muslims and allies in Michigan, Harris’ plan to continue arming Israel is a deal breaker, and she’s lost some who are part of the bloc. They plan to leave the top of the ticket blank, vote third-party for Jill Stein or for another candidate. Some might end up voting for former President Donald Trump.

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The loss of support of Arab-American, Muslim and uncommitted voters could have profound consequences in Michigan, where Trump won by 10,000 votes in 2016, and where polling averages have Harris edging the former president by about 2%. Over 100,000 people voted “uncommitted” in Michigan during the February primary. 

Harris has generally expressed more sympathy for Palestinians than President Joe Biden, and during the recent debate with Trump, called for “a two-state solution where we can rebuild Gaza where the Palestinians have security, self-determination and the dignity they so rightly deserve.”

But Harris has rejected calls to halt U.S. arms sales to Israel, which Israeli officials say is essential to continuing an assault on Gaza that has killed at least 40,000 people, most of them civilians. The Gaza war started on Oct. 7 when a Hamas attack left over 1,200 people dead.  

The frustration was conveyed in more pointed terms in mid-September at ArabCon, where Arab-Americans, uncommitted leaders and scholars gathered to discuss the war and electoral strategy. Some community leaders directed anger at top Democrats and urged attendees to make their voices heard with a protest vote. 

“Go and vote but don’t worry about the top of the ticket because whoever is at the top won’t change anything … or stop the genocide,” said Nasser Beydoun, a Dearborn businessman and former candidate for US Senate. “America can do better.” 

In 2020, Biden won Michigan with over 60% of the Arab-American vote, but his approval rating among the group dropped to 29% after the war broke out in Gaza, and it remains low. 

The switch to Harris inspired some hope of a Gaza policy shift, and the vice president has a bit more goodwill among uncommitted and Arab-American voters than Biden, said James Zogby, a pollster, political consultant and member of the Democratic National Committee. 

“The fact that she is not Biden counts,” he said. “There was a lot of resentment over Gaza with Biden.” 

More broadly, there is evidence that the war is an electorally significant topic. Zogby’s polling found around 15% of voters say Gaza is a very important issue, while nearly half said it was somewhat important. 

Meanwhile, over half of poll respondents said military aid for Israel should be halted if it causes a danger to civilians. Harris would gain support and increase her lead over Trump from 4% to 10% nationally if she demanded a ceasefire and implemented an arms embargo, a boost largely driven by third-party and undecided voters, the poll found. 

The support for a Gaza policy change is especially strong among young, nonwhite voters, who are essential to Harris’s chances, Zogby said. He said he was surprised to find strong support for the Palestinian cause among second- and third-generation immigrants across many nationalities and religions. 

“I call Palestine ‘the wound in the heart that doesn’t heal,’” Zogby said. 

The uncommitted voter 

BridgeDetroit heard from more than a dozen uncommitted voters during August and September about how they might cast their ballot. Two themes quickly emerged: They feel taken for granted by Harris and Democrats, and they believe Trump would be worse than Harris, but feel that they cannot cast a ballot for anyone who supports genocide with U.S. weapons. 

“[Democrats] think we’re going to vote for them no matter what because we always have,” said Mo, a Hamtramck resident and Yemini-American immigrant who declined to give his last name over fear of retaliation for being critical of the party and Israel. “But I’ve never had to think about whether my vote will support a genocide, so everything is different this time.”    

Community leaders at ArabCon said securing a change on weapons transfer policy was viewed by many as a longshot, but uncommitted voters thought they would be able to secure smaller asks, like having a Palestinian-American politician give a brief, pre-approved speech at the Democratic National Convention. The Harris campaign’s refusal to grant that was “deeply insulting,” Mo said, a sentiment echoed by others.  

Mo and Kassis said they will not vote for Trump and are leaning toward voting for a third-party candidate, though Kassis added there is “not one single politician who I would trust” on Gaza. 

“Not that I want to be a single-issue voter but this is important for me to consider, and, yeah, Trump would be worse, but I don’t know anyone else would be much better,” Kassis said.  

Ypsilanti resident Arika Lycan said they were raised Jewish and even though “I’m not really practicing, it’s a part of my identity.”

They said when the Oct. 7, 2023, attack happened, they spent time trying to inform themselves and move past the rhetoric. “I knew the language I was hearing was racist and Islamophobic. I have been devastated and horrified consistently since I gained awareness.”

Since then, Lycan, 39, has spent time phone banking and supporting the uncommitted vote effort as a supporter of the Listen to Michigan campaign. They voted uncommitted in February and have been attending protests. Lycan, a member engagement manager for University of Michigan’s Precision Health, also engaged in protests with students on campus. 

As far as their vote in November, Lycan said “there are a lot of things I think (Harris) could do to win my vote, but I don’t think she has so far and I don’t think she will.”

Democratic leaders of the national Uncommitted Movement said earlier this month they won’t be endorsing Harris for president because she hasn’t committed to stop sending U.S. weapons to Israel for use in Gaza and other conflicts. 

Abbas Alawieh, the uncommitted delegate from Michigan’s 12th District, clarified at a Sept. 19 meeting that this means the Listen to Michigan campaign will not actively campaign in support of Harris. 

But Alawieh and other leaders of the uncommitted movement in Michigan have reached a point where they need to make recommendations to their supporters. Although they agreed a second Trump term would be catastrophic for establishing a ceasefire, they were not united on who to vote for, or whether to leave the top of the ticket blank. And some in the audience insisted a vote for Trump or Stein would be better for Gaza. 

Keeping momentum post election

Rima Mohammad, the uncommitted delegate for the 6th Congressional District, said the next step for her organization is to continue building a movement beyond Election Day and help serve marginalized communities.

“We cannot do this alone. It’s very important we do not alienate these communities that are working with us… There are people from the Black community who support Harris, people who want to support Jill Stein, but it’s important not to alienate them by saying ‘a vote for Harris is a vote for genocide.’ We cannot do that,” said Mohammad. “In the end, these candidates are going to come and go, but what can’t come and go is our alliances.”

At ArabCon, Linda Sarsour, a New York City-based community organizer who co-organized the 2017 Women’s March, urged the audience to “vote their conscience.” 

“Sit with yourself for a second and ask yourself, ‘What’s going to get me closer to what I want?’” Sarsour said. “Do you really think anything transformative is going to happen in November 2024?” 

A recent Council on Arab-American Relations survey of its members found around 30% plan to vote for Green Party candidate Stein. The survey was not of Arab-Americans or uncommitted voters more broadly, but community leaders say it points to the likelihood that many Arab-Americans will not vote for Harris.

Leaders at ArabCon stressed that nothing is going to change in the near term no matter who is president, and those who have followed U.S. policy across multiple administrations are not expecting a substantive shift from the Harris administration.

“The difference is shallow,” noted Said Arikat, an Al-Quds journalist who covers the U.S. State Department’s Middle East policy.

But there was also optimism at ArabCon that a shift in public sentiment around Israel will ultimately lead to change, and that is already in motion. Some noted the civil rights movement took decades to win, and required overcoming the “Dixiecrats” who opposed them. The protest movement against the Vietnam War lasted about a decade, and several Arab-American voters said they are playing the “long game.” 

They see a third-party vote, or leaving the top of the ticket blank, as a way to push that effort forward and make their presence felt.

“This has been going on for decades and the U.S. could solve the problem, but it doesn’t want to because it hasn’t been pressured,” said Maryam Hussein, a Dearborn business owner. “But we will win this – it is going to take time, and we need to deliver a message in this election.” 

Zogby said he sees more hope in Harris than others do. She has been vague in some ways about Israel, which could be a sign that she is keeping her options open, he said. Moreover, she is not a part of the neoconservative foreign policy school as Biden is, Zogby added, and that is a meaningful change.

“She comes from a different generation, is a woman of color and has a different worldview, and I would not fail to recognize that in considering what she does next,” he said.