Split on who to support, Muslim and Arab American leaders give a range of endorsements — or none at all

As the presidential election nears, Rima Mohammad is busy talking to people about the choices they will face on their ballots.

As a Muslim Palestinian American school board trustee and one of Michigan's two "Uncommitted" delegates for this summer's Democratic National Convention, she has yet to decide how she will vote herself. She is encouraging people to vote their conscience, but with a clear understanding of the risks and benefits of each choice.

"I'm still holding on[to] hope," that Vice President Kamala Harris will change course on how the U.S. responds to the Israel-Hamas war, Mohammad said. "I still don't know, to be honest, what I'm going to do. I'm holding my ballot until Nov. 5."

A lot of attention is focused on the swing state of Michigan, where former President Donald Trump saw a narrow victory of 10,700 votes in 2016 and President Joe Biden won by about 154,000 votes in 2020.

More than 310,000 people of Middle Eastern or North African (MENA) ancestry call Michigan home, according to 2020 census data, and there are more than 200,000 Muslim American voters in the state, according to Emgage, including many Asian, Arab, and Black Americans.

For many Muslim and Arab Americans, Israel's wars in Gaza, Lebanon, and the wider Middle East are personal, and so is this election. These voters have a wide range of views about how Harris and Trump would handle the war, and the past several weeks have brought a flurry of opinions from prominent Muslim and Arab American community leaders about the best choice at the ballot box.

Emgage Action, the advocacy arm of the largest Muslim American get-out-the-vote organization, officially endorsed Harris on Sept. 25, to "prevent Trump from returning to the White House." The organization states, "This endorsement is not an agreement with Vice President Harris on all issues, but rather, an honest guidance to our voters regarding the difficult choice they confront at the ballot box."

The organization acknowledges the moral dilemma some Muslim American voters feel, but argues that votes for third-party candidates in swing states are how Trump was elected in 2016.

READ MORE: What 'uncommitted' voters in Michigan want

The Uncommitted National Movement, a multiracial, multigenerational, and multifaith anti-war movement that started in Michigan during the presidential primaries, did not endorse Harris directly, but warned on Sept. 19 of the dangers of a second Trump presidency for both people in Gaza and anti-war organizers in the U.S., and recommended against voting for a third-party candidate because of how it could contribute to an Electoral College win forTrump "whose agenda includes plans to accelerate the killing in Gaza while intensifying the suppression of anti-war organizing."

"With a second Trump presidency, both civilians in Palestine and our antiwar movement here in our country will suffer," Abbas Alawieh, co-founder of the "Uncommitted" movement said in a Nov. 1 ad sponsored by PACs Listen to US and Listen to Michigan.

A task force of national Muslim American nonprofits and a group of Muslim American imams associated with the "Abandon Harris" campaign encouraged people to vote for a third-party candidate who supports a cease-fire, arms embargo, and other anti-war stances on Israel and Gaza. Another group of Muslim faith leaders associated with Muslims for Harris and another group of community leaders endorsed the Democrat for her support of a cease-fire, a two-state solution for Palestine, and Muslim Americans during Trump's Muslim ban.

Amer Ghalib, the mayor of Hamtramck, Michigan, which has a large Muslim American population, endorsed Trump, and three members of the all-Muslim city council later threw their support behind Harris. Bill Bazzi, the mayor of Dearborn Heights, a nearby city with a large Arab American population, has also endorsed Trump, who appeared with a small group of nine imams and community leaders at an Oct. 26 rally in Novi.

"When President Trump was president, it was peace. We didn't have any issues. There was no wars. He didn't create wars. He was actually trying to withdraw our troops from overseas," Bazzi said at the rally.

Several prominent elected officials, including Dearborn mayor Abdullah Hammoud, have declined to endorse anyone for president. The Arab American Political Action Committee has endorsed both Republicans and Democrats since 1998. The organization, alongside newspaper The Arab American News, declined to endorse anyone for president or U.S. Senate, advising people to not vote for any presidential candidate, while still urging them to vote for the many local races down-ballot for which they have made endorsements.

"By not voting for either Donald Trump or Kamala Harris, we are not staying silent — to the contrary, we are making a powerful statement and sending a clear message: We refuse to endorse candidates who do not care about us or our concerns, continue to divide America and are complicit in an active genocide. Our votes matter and withholding them will show that we cannot be ignored or taken for granted," the endorsement read.

WATCH: How Harris and Trump are trying to reach voters in the battleground state of Michigan

A national poll in late October from the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the nation's largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, showed that 42 percent of Muslim American voters support Green Party candidate Jill Stein, 41 percent support Harris, and 9.8 percent support Trump. Fewer than 1 percent of voters remain undecided at this point, and about 5 percent said they plan not to vote. This is a shift from a late August poll from the same organization, which showed that 29 percent of Muslim Americans supported both Harris and Stein, and 11 percent supported Trump. At the time, 16.5 percent were undecided.

Looking to Arab Americans, polling conducted by the Arab American Institute in September found that support for Trump and Harris was virtually tied, with 42 percent of Arab Americans supporting Trump, 41 percent supporting Harris, and 12 percent supporting third-party candidates.

Regardless of which candidate voters choose, the election is an opportunity for them to make their voices heard, Rima Meroueh of National Network for Arab American Communities said.

For the past year, many Arab Americans have called for a cease-fire "only to be met with silence or patronizing platitudes from elected officials. They feel unheard, like standing on the side of a road yelling and no one is stopping to hear them," Meroueh said. "So they are turning to the only way they know they can be heard — using their votes to make noise at the ballot box.

Differing views

Imam Dawud Walid was one of about 75 imams and scholars from across the country who released a letter at the end of September urging Muslim Americans to vote for a third-party candidate. He said that it was not an endorsement of Stein, although the group supporting the letter, the Abandon Harris campaign, later endorsed the Green Party candidate as part of their strategy to "punish" Harris at the ballot box.

The letter, quoting passages from the Quran, urged Muslim American voters to reject the argument that they should choose Harris over Trump as the lesser of two evils. Instead, the letter calls for prioritizing one's faith and humanity and taking a stand for justice.

"There is nothing worse than genocide," Walid told PBS News in an email. "Therefore, the argument that Mr. Trump would be a greater evil than Vice President Harris who is tacitly responsible for genocide along with President Biden holds no validity with us."

The letter also emphasized the importance of not staying home and of coming out to vote all the way down the ballot for other candidates and policies that stand for truth and justice.

Walid also signed a separate letter on Oct. 21 from 47 Black Muslim American activists, leaders, and scholars urging people to vote for candidates in favor of cease-fire and arms embargoes.

Invoking religious duty, however, has not been well received by everyone among Muslim American religious leadership. Imam Mikail Stewart-Saadiq disagreed with the usage of the Quran, saying "I hate people flinging the scriptures at one another," adding, "Just say, 'This is my political decision,' and that's it."

Instead, Stewart-Saadiq joined a letter with more than two dozen imams and other leaders in favor of Harris. The signees wanted to offer a kind of religious allowance so that Muslim American voters could see that it is not sacrilegious to vote for Harris.

"Our community is in pain, but we must also remember that we cannot allow our country to return to Jim Crow America. This is not a reality our community can afford," the Oct. 6 letter read.

Allowing Trump to return to office, "whether by voting directly for him or for a third-party candidate, is both a moral and a strategic failure," it continued.

READ MORE: Arab American voters struggle to back Harris over U.S. support for Israel's war in Gaza

Stewart-Saadiq attributes people's unwillingness to vote for Harris to collective pain, trauma, and anger currently being felt in the community over the ongoing war in Gaza.

"We're not happy," he said. "But we can't sink the ship."

"The darker you are, the worse you get it," he added. "So don't expect me to sacrifice myself and all of the civil rights gains and all of our allies here — minorities, people of color, women, the poor, people that are otherized and discriminated against because of their genders and their sexual persuasion, all that."

Imam Belal Alzuhiry and other imams supporting Trump expressed a different view.

"We support Donald J. Trump for his commitment to promoting family values and protecting our children's well-being, especially when it comes to curriculums and schools," he said at the Oct. 26 Trump rally after meeting with the former president.

Alzuhiry went on to say that the group of nine Muslim American imams and community leaders on stage with him believe Trump's promises to end war and also that he will embrace every race, color and religion.

"We are with President Trump because we want a strong border. We agree with President Trump that anyone who wants to come to this country is welcome, but he has to do that through a legal pathway. We are with President Trump because we want a strong economy."

Getting out the vote

Rima Meroueh of National Network for Arab American Communities said that Arab American voters have not been one-issue voters; they are usually motivated by the same issues other groups prioritize, such as jobs, education, and health equity.

But the war has emerged as an overwhelming lead issue this election, and what advocates are hearing on the ground is that many voters are determined to make their presence known at the ballot box.

READ MORE: Across Michigan, these groups are trying to fight misinformation and energize voters

Arab American Institute president James Zogby wrote in his column, "Washington Watch," that in 30 years of polling Arab American voters, "we have not witnessed anything like the role that the war on Gaza is having on voter behavior. The year-long unfolding genocide in Gaza has impacted every component sub-group within the community — with only slight variations among religious communities and countries of origin, immigrant or native born, gender and age groups."

Eighty-one percent of Arab Americans said that the war in Gaza is important in determining their vote, according to the Arab American Institute poll.

Polling from the Yaqeen Institute for Islamic Research between Aug. 27 and Sept. 8 found that foreign policy in the Middle East was the single most important issue for 90.5 percent of Muslim Americans, with 86 percent saying that they would not vote for a candidate who did not hold the same position as they held.

Regardless of which presidential candidate people are supporting, advocates are urging Muslim and Arab American communities to turn out to vote.

Only 63 percent of Arab Americans reported being enthusiastic about voting in this election, as compared to 80 percent in past years, the Arab American Institute poll found.

READ MORE: New citizens in Michigan share what voting means to them

Rima Mohammad, an "Uncommitted" delegate, has been spending her time encouraging people to consider the down-ballot races as another motivating factor.

"The most important thing is that you vote because we are a big body of people here in Michigan. If all of us show up and vote, [we] can influence races," she added.

Voters are "focusing a lot on the presidential race and then we're just trying to have them not lose sight. We don't want voter apathy."

Organizing for Harris would have been easier, she added, if the Democratic presidential candidate had let a Palestinian American speak during the convention. Despite the calls from pro-Palestianian delegates to grant this speaking slot, convention officials declined.

She also said that voters would have been easier to convince if the Biden administration had addressed the humanitarian crisis in Gaza or done more than call for a cease-fire or arms embargo without following up the call with action.

"It's hard for me as a Palestinian to say this, but we can organize better under Harris. I just want to see some action" from Harris, Mohammad said. "It's like survival voting."

Voting for a seat at the table

In 2020, voter-mobilization group Emgage helped turn out more than a million Muslim American voters. On Sept. 25, its advocacy arm, Emgage Action, formally endorsed Harris, saying that a vote for a third-party candidate "is the road to victory for Trump" and that Harris is the only realistic way for Muslim Americans to get a seat at the table.

CEO Wa'el Alzayat said Harris is the only one of the two candidates who supports a cease-fire. Harris wants the war to end and supports Palestinian self-determination, he said, and while she has said this in speeches, not everyone is able to hear or believe her.

"It's very hard for people to hear when bombs are dropping," he said.

No third-party candidate has a chance of winning enough electoral votes, he said, so the only viable path forward to push on these issues and more is under a Harris presidency.

To those who want to "punish" the Democrats and teach them a lesson, Alzayat said, "American politics doesn't work that way. The winning team is going to reward those who supported it and ignore those who didn't, politically. And if you're trying to advance a very difficult agenda like Israel-Palestine, you need to have a seat at the table. You need to have some leverage. So if you go with Jill Stein, you essentially could become politically orphaned."

There is a lot of attention being placed on Muslim and Arab American voters right now. But Alzayat said that for these voters to go from overwhelming support of Biden in 2020 to whatever it will be on Election Day, comes out of policies towards the Middle East that did not start with the Biden administration and will take a lot of work to change. This is about a foreign policy establishment in which "a lot of the same players just cycle in and out. So this is more than just the president. This is a systemic issue," Alzayat said.