Hushum Al-Husainy had just finished his prayers last Thursday afternoon when he explained why he was trying to help Donald Trump win back the White House.
“I just want to see the world be more stable,” said Al-Husainy, an Iraqi-American Imam at a prominent Islamic centre in Dearborn, Michigan.
He expected that Trump would end the wars in the Middle East and Europe. But Al-Husainy offered another reason for backing the Republican former president, rooted in the cleric’s staunch, theocratic conservatism that includes opposition to same-sex marriage.
“I find him closer to the real biblical logic,” he said of Trump.
Amid a fierce battle to gain any edge with voters in the Midwestern battleground state a week out from the election, Trump is leaning on figures such as Al-Husainy to convince undecided Arab-Americans to flock to his camp, or at least not vote for Kamala Harris, the vice-president and Democratic nominee.
Democrats have had the upper hand with Arab-American voters in Michigan in recent presidential elections. But Israel’s year-long war in Gaza and the recent escalation in the conflict with Lebanon have threatened to shatter that advantage.
In what is shaping up to be one of the closest White House races in recent memory, the scale of any losses suffered by Harris among Michigan’s Arab- Americans — and other voters unhappy with her Middle East stance — could prove decisive.
In February, some 100,000 Michigan Democrats voted “uncommitted” in the presidential primary to protest the Gaza war, rather than for Biden.
If anything approaching that number of defections hits Harris next week without gains elsewhere the result could swing to Trump.
Trump lost Michigan to Biden by 154,000 votes in 2020.
While Harris has shown more sympathy for Palestinian and Lebanese civilians compared with US President Joe Biden, she has not distanced herself from his policy of strong support for Israel, including military aid. This has left her at risk of significant defections to third party candidates such as Green Party leader Jill Stein, or even Trump.
“I hate them both. It feels like you’re stuck but I’m not going to be forced into voting for either one of them,” said Nura Elhady, a 22-year old university graduate in Dearborn, referring to Harris and Trump.
The Yemeni-American backed Biden in 2020 but is supporting Stein this year and says she is seeing some voters move towards Trump.
“I don’t agree with that, but I know that their reason for voting for Trump is because they’re so upset with Kamala,” she added.
In recent days, Trump has stepped up efforts to court Arab-American voters in Michigan. He has rallied with Muslim leaders and clerics in Novi, a town on the western outskirts of Detroit, joined by two mayors in the area who are supporting his bid.
“The Muslim and Arab voters in Michigan and across the country want a stop to the endless wars and a return to peace in the Middle East. That’s all they want,” Trump said.
The Republican nominee also blasted Harris for campaigning with Liz Cheney, the former Republican congresswoman and daughter of Dick Cheney, one of the architects of the Iraq war when he was vice-president under George W Bush.
“The reason I don’t get along with her is because she wanted to invade every damn country that she looked at. She’s a dope, like her father is a dope,” Trump said.
But Trump’s ability to make big inroads and a credible case to Arab-Americans is questionable.
Trump has remained close to Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, and the two have been speaking throughout the campaign. Critics say Trump would give Israel even more support to escalate its military operations in the region if he was president.
Meanwhile, Trump — who championed a ban on immigrants from Muslim-majority countries while he was in the White House — is planning a new historic crackdown on illegal immigration including mass deportations that could affect Arab-Americans too.
“He’s an advocate for the maniacal practices of Netanyahu. He loves authoritarian rulers. He loves a particular brand of nationalism called white nationalism. Some of us are crystal clear on that,” says Mik’ail Stewart Saadig, an Imam from the Detroit area who is supporting the Harris campaign.
Ahmed, a 29-year old entrepreneur in Hamtramck, a town near Detroit where the mayor has backed Trump, said he is not voting for Harris after supporting a string of Democratic presidential nominees in the past.
“It’s hard to vote for somebody who is still with genocide. You’re gonna step over all these dead bodies to go vote for this. How do you live with yourself?”
But speaking after his own afternoon prayers in the town, Ahmed says he would not support Trump either.
“I don’t think he’s anti-war, I think he will be worse,” he said, adding: “He’s always been against Middle Eastern people”.
Speaking at the Harris campaign office in Dearborn, Sami Khaldi, the president of the city’s Democratic party club, says the campaign has been “up and down from the day one” but they are still fighting to convince voters to back Harris.
“She’s clearly for a ceasefire, rebuilding Gaza, more humanitarian aid, and she’s against reoccupying Gaza. At the same time, she’s advocating for a two state solution,” says Khaldi.
But Khaldi says he has told the campaign that more forceful statements in the coming days from her would help.
“The people are still waiting for her to come out strong on this,” he said.
Any big changes from Harris are unlikely at this stage however. One Democratic strategist said she could risk alienating other voters if she shifts to a more confrontational stance towards Israel at the eleventh hour.
“One per cent of the electorate in Michigan is Arab-American. Two per cent of the electorate is Jewish . . . being strong against terrorists and being pro-Israel appeals to a hell of a lot of other voters, too,” the strategist said.
“Harris has to demonstrate that she is tough enough to be commander-in-chief. These are very big, hard questions”.
Marsha McMaster, a 73-year old retired teacher’s aide who lives in Dearborn and has voted for Harris, said she hoped that Arab-American discontent would not make a big difference in the election, saying the city was only a “small enclave” in a big country.
“If they think things are going to be better under Trump, they’re making a mistake,” she added.
Imam Stewart says that some Muslim-American voters are shy about saying they will support Harris, but may still vote for her in the end.
“There’s people that are really just apprehensive about coming out and expressing their support for the Democrats or support for the Harris Walz campaign, because they don’t want the blow back from their insular, immediate communities,” he said.
“I think people just have to really look at the options to try to fight through our anger, fight through our pain,” he said.
Additional reporting by Lauren Fedor in Washington
Data visualisation by Cleve Jones
