Boston Globe: Tensions between Black and Arab American voters roil Michigan Senate race
The Boston Globe reported on Oct. 21 that tensions between Black and Arab American voters, rooted in the 2024 presidential election, are shaping Michigan's U.S. Senate race, in which Democratic candidate Abdul El-Sayed could become what the Globe called "the nation's first Muslim US senator." According to the Globe, Arab Americans are now the majority of Dearborn's 106,000 residents. The Globe reported that Arab American anger over then-President Joe Biden's support for Israel's war in Gaza helped President Trump narrowly win Michigan in 2024, and that Trump outpolled Kamala Harris in Dearborn, 42 percent to 36 percent, "creating deep wounds with some Black voters whose support El-Sayed needs to win a tight race."
Osama Siblani, publisher of the Arab American News, told the Globe: "The possibilities are there right now for an Arab American and a Muslim American to be a US senator." Of El-Sayed he said: "I don't agree with everything that he says. But I believe that whatever he says, he means." The Globe reported that Siblani's newspaper urged voters to leave the top of the ticket blank in 2024, and that Siblani said El-Sayed is doing "a very good job" reaching out to Black voters.
El-Sayed said: "I think if a lot of us could have . . . 2024 back, we would have thought about things in different ways." At an event in Grand Rapids he said: "I owe a deep debt of gratitude to Black folks." The Globe reported that El-Sayed has been doing extensive outreach to Black voters after struggling with them in his August primary win over Rep. Haley Stevens, and that Rep. Ayanna Pressley, Sen. Lisa Blunt Rochester and Sen. Raphael Warnock have campaigned with him this month. Pressley said: "Abdul earned my support because he wasn't afraid of hard conversations, including discussing some of those tensions."
JD Chapman, 46, who runs a nonprofit that mentors youths and families and voted for Stevens in the primary, told reporters he was not sold on El-Sayed. According to the Globe, Chapman believes Arab Americans aren't "kind to Black people here" and was seriously considering not voting in the Senate race. Robert Womack, president of the Grand Rapids chapter of the voter education group Boots on the Ground, said: "I think he really has a chance to heal those wounds, and it never should have been his responsibility to heal those wounds. But that's what a real leader is."
The Globe reported that Republican Senate candidate Mike Rogers has described his own attempts to win Black voters as "off the chart," and has visited Black neighborhoods and churches and opened a campaign office in Detroit. Marcus Bowman, a Republican school board member in Pontiac, said: "He's making the Black voter and the Black community a priority."