Arab American leaders listen as Kamala Harris tries to shore up support in key swing states

DEARBORN, Mich. (AP) — Osama Siblani’s phone keeps ringing.

Just days after President Joe Biden withdrew his reelection bid and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris for the Democratic presidential nomination, top officials from both major political parties asked the publisher of Dearborn-based Arab American News whether Harris can win back the support of the nation’s largest Muslim population, living in metro Detroit.

His answer: “We are in listening mode.”

Harris, who is seeking the Democratic nomination after Biden leaves office, appears to be quickly turning her attention to the task of convincing Arab American voters in Michigan (a state Democrats say she can ill afford to lose in November) that she is a leader they can unite behind.

Community leaders have shown a willingness to listen, and some have had initial conversations with Harris’ team. Many had grown exasperated with Biden after feeling that months of outreach had not yielded much.

“The door has been open since Biden left office,” said Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud. “There is an opportunity for the Democratic nominee to build the coalition that Biden made president four years ago. But that responsibility now falls to the vice president.”

Arab American leaders like Hammoud and Siblani are watching closely for signs that Harris will be more vocal in her push for a ceasefire. They are enthusiastic about her candidacy but want to make sure she is an advocate for peace and not an unequivocal supporter of Israel.

But Harris will have to walk a fine line and not publicly break with Biden’s position on the war in Gaza, while his administration officials have been working hard to secure a ceasefire, especially behind the scenes.

The divisions within Harris’ own party were on full display in Washington last week during Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to Congress. Some Democrats supported the visit, while others protested and refused to attend. Outside the Capitol, pro-Palestinian protesters were met with pepper spray and arrests.

Rep. Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, the only Palestinian-American in Congress whose district includes Dearborn, held a sign reading “war criminal” during Netanyahu’s remarks.

Harris was not there.

Some Arab American leaders are interpreting her absence — she attended a campaign rally in Indianapolis instead — as a sign of good faith toward them, though they acknowledge her ongoing responsibilities as vice president, including a meeting Thursday with Netanyahu.

Her first test within the community will come when Harris chooses a running mate. One of the names on her shortlist, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, has been openly critical of pro-Palestinian protesters and is Jewish. Some Arab American leaders in Michigan say including him would deepen their unease about the level of support they could expect from a Harris administration.

“Josh Shapiro was one of the first to criticize students on campus, so it doesn’t matter to Harris if she chooses him. It just says I’m going to follow Biden’s policies,” said Rima Meroueh, executive director of the National Network for Arab American Communities.

Arab Americans are betting that their vote will carry enough electoral weight in crucial swing states like Michigan to ensure that officials will listen to them. Michigan has the largest concentration of Arab Americans in the country, and the state’s majority-Muslim cities overwhelmingly backed Biden in 2020. He won Dearborn, for example, by a margin of about 3 to 1 over former President Donald Trump.

In February, more than 100,000 Democratic voters in Michigan voted “uncommitted,” securing two delegates to protest the Biden administration’s unequivocal support for Israel’s response to Hamas’s October 7 attacks. Nationally, “uncommitted” won a total of 36 delegates in the primary earlier this year.

The groups leading this effort have called for, at a minimum, an embargo on all arms shipments to Israel and a permanent ceasefire.

“If Harris were calling for an arms embargo, I would work day and night every day until the election to get her elected,” said Abbas Alawieh, a “non-committed” delegate from Michigan and national leader of the movement. “There is a real opportunity now to unite the coalition. It is up to her to deliver, but we are cautiously optimistic.”

That division was on full display Wednesday night, when the Michigan Democratic Party rallied more than 100 delegates to rally behind Harris. During the rally, Alawieh, one of three state delegates who did not commit to Harris, was speaking when another delegate interrupted him by turning on his microphone and telling him to “shut up,” using a profanity, Alawieh said.