West threatens to peel off Arab American voters in Michigan

DEARBORN, Michigan — Cornel West is making a bold play for a key Biden constituency in a crucial swing state, on an issue that’s bitterly divided the Democratic Party.

The independent candidate campaigned in Michigan this week to offer Arab American voters angry over the Israel-Hamas conflict a new political home in 2024. In Dearborn, a majority Arab American suburb of Detroit, West hosted several roundtable meetings with donors, local political organizers and Muslim community leaders, who wanted to hear West’s positions on Gaza.

The day on the campaign trail began with West promising he would ask the International Criminal Court to investigate potential war crimes committed by the Israel Defense Forces in a press release. During multiple roundtable discussions, the university professor called Israel an “apartheid state.” And West accused the U.S. government of supporting a “genocide” of the Palestinian people.

“I don’t call it the Palestinian problem, or the Palestinian question,” West said at a luncheon with Arab American donors and business leaders in Dearborn. “It’s a catastrophe.”

Losing just a fraction of Michigan voters who supported President Joe Biden in 2020 could scramble the presidential election in 2024. Biden won the state narrowly last cycle — and the margin was even closer when Donald Trump took it in 2016. And the Israel-Hamas war is opening a channel for West to collect unsatisfied voters.

Biden has spoken about the horrors of the conflict, but even Vice President Kamala Harris is lobbying the president to speak more sympathetically about the Palestinians.

The president’s ability to emotionally connect, especially during tragedy, with voters has long been one of his political strengths. But in Michigan, it’s turning into a weakness.

“[Biden] cries for a person dying in a hospital or [who has] a cancer. He cannot stop himself from crying. And how come 18,000 people died, mostly children and women, and he doesn't want to see it or hear about it?” said Abdallah Sheik, a small business owner in Detroit who is now backing West. “And we are the ones who helped elect him here.”

Sheik voted for Biden in 2020 and helped turn out voters in Detroit with an Arab American and Muslim American-focused PAC, driving elderly people to the polls and promoting the importance of voting.

“After we saw Hillary Clinton lost, we step[ped] up [our] game,” Sheik said in an interview with POLITICO. “But I think we [made] a mistake.”

Sheik attended a fundraising luncheon for West in Dearborn, where the activist and scholar also hosted several roundtable events with local political organizers and Muslim community leaders. The focus of all of the events was the Israel-Hamas conflict, where West drew contrast between his views and the Biden administration.

The day capped off with a rally to support Gaza, where West was the keynote speaker, with 350 people in attendance, including activists from the local chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace and other local faith leaders, at the Greenfield Manor banquet hall.

“In Michigan, we voted for him last time, more than 140,000 Arab and Muslim people voted for him. This time, he will get zilch,” said Ali Fattom, a retired university professor, who is also now backing West.

“I voted for him, OK. I voted for Obama. But this time, he's not my man,” he said, of Biden.

Trump won Michigan by less than one percentage point in 2016 against Hillary Clinton, and Biden narrowly won back the state in 2020, in part by increasing Democratic turnout. Recent battleground state polling from CNN shows West garnering 6 percent support in a match-up against Biden, Trump and fellow independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who received 20 percent support in the same survey.

Even single-digit support for third-party candidates in 2024 — especially in Michigan — could have an outsize impact on the winner in the presidential election.

The Biden campaign did not respond to a request for comment.

Biden has already made several trips to Michigan since taking office, and he made history in the states as the first president to join autoworkers on the picket line in Detroit this summer.

But more outreach to Arab Americans in the state might help win back these disaffected voters, Democratic Party district chair Kevin Tolbert said in an interview with POLITICO.

“I think he probably needs to come back and really embrace and allow people to have a conversation and allow people to vent,” said Tolbert, who was not at the West events. “I think people want to be heard and feel like their voices matter.”

But at West’s campaign events, people debated how to best make their voices heard on this issue next November, whether that be voting for West or leaving the top of the ticket blank altogether.

At one roundtable discussion, a local political activist suggested Biden needed to be “punished” at the ballot box next year. Another said Biden “didn’t care about my people.”

Some voters acknowledged in their questions and interviews with POLITICO that their votes for West in Michigan were protest votes. Living in a swing state, there are higher stakes for every vote and thinner margins for victory. But making a statement on the war could be more important for some voters next November.

“We really need [to get] the message out,” Fattom said. “And the best messenger right now is Dr. West.”