Former President Donald Trump’s two-point shift to victory in Michigan from his 2020 result in the state came in the midst of a regression to the mean in historic Democrat-turnout — and a sea-change in how Michigan’s sizable Muslim and Arab-American population punched the ticket.
VP Kamala Harris garnered 16 million fewer votes in 2024 than President Joe Biden did in 2020, a result similar to turnout for Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. In other words, 2024 was a return to baseline from Biden’s anomalous 2020 victory.
As the country as a whole shifted toward Trump, and Trump took Michigan, along with every other swing state, Michigan’s Muslim population cast votes for Trump in record numbers. The Muslim and Arab-American-heavy Detroit suburbs of Hamtramck, Dearborn, and Dearborn Heights showed tectonic shifts from 2020, as well as from the 2022 midterms.
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Trump won Dearborn and Dearborn Heights with around 42.5 and 44% respectively compared with 24% and 36% respectively in 2020.
Compared with the wider Wayne County 8.5-point shift to Trump, Detroit’s Muslim and Arab suburbs broke to Trump by double digits.
In Hamtramck, Trump garnered a whopping 42% compared with Harris’ 46% performance there. Biden took Hamtramck by 72 points in 2020. Trump more than tripled his 2020 performance there.
The 2022 midterms saw modest gains on Trump’s prior losses in Detroit suburbs. Republican gubernatorial challenger Tudor Dixon increased Trump’s 2020 showing against Biden by six points against Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in Hamtramck. Dixon improved upon Trump in Dearborn by 10 points in the 2022 contest, earning 34% of the vote there.
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Social issues, including a strong reaction to LGBTQ propaganda in schools, may have driven Michigan’s Muslim and Arab-dominant suburbs toward Republicans in 2022, but only by 6-10 points at the top of Michigan’s ticket in those suburbs.
But what was bubbling under the surface for Democrats in the wake of the October 7 attacks on Israel was the party candidates’ “have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too” stance on Gaza and wider regional disruptions in the Middle East. For example, Harris’ campaign ran pro-Israel ads in Pennsylvania while at the same time airing pro-Palestine ads in Michigan.
Hamtramck’s Democrat Mayor Amer Ghalib and Dearborn Heights’ Arabic Mayor Bill Bazzi endorsed Trump, seeing Trump as the first U.S. president in generations to bring stability to the Middle East. Indeed, Trump is the first president in the lives of Americans under 40 not to start new wars or intensify global conflicts.
The writing may have been on the wall for Harris in the Detroit suburbs as the Biden-Harris administration tried to appease far-left Democrats on the war in Gaza. In February, “Uncommitted” Democratic primary voters parted with Biden in Dearborn, with 57% rejecting the President’s bid for his own party’s nomination by nearly 20 points. Biden garnered in the primary less than half the share of his 2020 vote.
Bazzi told the Middle East Eye, “One of the biggest reasons I endorsed Trump is because he’s been preaching the same thing: stop the war.”
Within hours of Trump’s victory, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu congratulated the former President as Hamas leaders said they would work with Trump to stop the conflict. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky changed course in messaging, too, saying “we have to stop the war as soon as possible.”