- Author, Rafid Jabouri
- Role, BBC Arabic News – Washington
A White House aspirant guarantees his success when he builds a broad coalition of voters from diverse backgrounds who are enthusiastic about his plan, even if they disagree on the details and priorities.
Joe Biden was able to count on a broad coalition in the 2020 elections that mainly included the traditional wing of his Democratic Party, which is the wing to which Biden himself belongs, as well as the ascendant left wing of the party, supported by a large segment of American youth.
Arab and Muslim voters were part of Biden’s electoral coalition; Most of them voted for him because he rejected his opponent, Donald Trump, who began his presidential term by banning travelers from Muslim countries from entering his country, and made statements that caused concern and alienation among many. American Muslims.
But now things have changed in a way that could be radical and influential, and the reason is the war between Israel and Gaza.
Biden expressed his great support and sympathy for Israel after the October 7 Hamas attack, stressing that Washington believes that Israel’s response to Hamas is not only its right but also its duty. Congress also expressed its broad and strong support for Israel with its willingness to respond. agree to allocate financial support, obviously on the basis that most Americans traditionally support Israel and consider it an ally that must be supported.
But the continuation of Israeli operations in Gaza, along with the destruction and large number of Palestinian casualties, have made the voices of Arab and Muslim Americans louder against Biden’s policy.
The call for a ceasefire has become a key demand, repeated in demonstrations and activities that have increased and expanded. The demonstration organized by a coalition including organizations that support Palestine in Washington on November 4 this year was a of the largest demonstrations in the history of the cause of support for Palestine in the American capital, and among the participants there were thousands who poured into the streets and raised slogans strongly criticizing Biden, and even condemning him and holding him responsible for the Palestinian victims in Gaza.
The demonstrations and activities critical of Israel and Biden’s policies in the United States were not limited to Arabs and Muslims, but involved a significant percentage of left-wing and progressive groups supported by an important part of the electoral base that supported Biden versus Trump in the elections.
But now their anger against Biden is clear, as they have begun to demonstrate with Arabs and Muslims, speaking, writing and raising their voices, calling first for a ceasefire and even radical changes in Washington policy in support of Israel. A group of American Muslim organizations even sent a clear message to Biden that they would not vote for him unless he imposed a ceasefire on Israel.
This coincided with a very worrying indicator for Biden, represented by an opinion poll published by the New York Times, which showed that Trump was ahead of Biden among voters in a group of the most electorally important states. They are Nevada, Arizona, Georgia, Michigan and Pennsylvania.
Although the first reaction of the Biden administration was to downplay the importance of this poll and point out that the indicators are constantly changing, Biden’s electoral situation is not good, and this has become evident in the liberal orientation of the media in towards him and his supporters, the question of Biden’s political destiny and the idea of proposing other candidates within the party to replace him.
But this is difficult when Biden, who is eighty-one years old, announces that he will run in next year’s election to seek another presidential term.
image source, BBC
I recently met James Zogby, one of the most prominent Arab-American figures in Washington, who runs a well-known research and polling firm. Zogby points out that what is striking in opinion polls is not just the declining rate of support for Biden among Arab voters, but rather his rapid and sharp decline.
Zogby also believes that Biden will never be able to remedy this, despite “the Biden campaign’s claims that Arab voters will change their views in the coming months as the election date approaches.”
The Biden administration has tried to show a certain balance in its policy towards Israel and the Palestinians: abroad it has announced further aid to Gaza and has tried to persuade Israel to accept humanitarian truces because Biden is convinced, like Israel, that a ceasefire will mean victory for Hamas.
The Biden administration has also made clear its rejection of Israel reoccupying or besieging the Gaza Strip, or forcing Palestinians to migrate en masse from it.
Domestically, the Biden administration has launched a first-of-its-kind initiative to combat Islamophobia, but Zogby expressed to me his dissatisfaction with that initiative and strongly criticized it for its unclear details and even unsatisfactory for Muslims and Arab Americans. . This was the same position expressed to me by Nasser Baydoun, an Arab-American candidate from Michigan seeking to compete for a state Senate seat.
Baydoun says this initiative was written in a way that had many downsides.
Baydoun pointed out that in Michigan, which includes a large concentration of Arab Americans, Trump won in 2016 by a margin of only ten thousand votes, while Biden won there four years later by not a large margin, and it was a small one at that. . more than 100 thousand votes.
The identity of the next president of the United States will depend on Michigan and similar competitive or swing states, as some call them, which number fewer than ten states.
Although Trump will likely qualify as the Republican Party’s nominee to face Biden and his Democratic Party again, opinion polls are not in Biden’s favor.
Although Arab and Muslim American voters make up only a small percentage of the total American electorate, this percentage could be enough in competitive states to unseat Biden.
This may not require them to vote for Trump, who has not yet fully mended his relationship with them, but their abstention from voting in itself could lead to Biden’s loss.