Opinion - Spurned by MAGA attacks, Arab-American voters defect to Democrats

This year's midterm election cycle has been more grueling than most, and Republicans seem to be committed to making sure it doesn't end without our national discourse hitting a new low. The disgraceful wave of anti-Arab and anti-Islamic rhetoric spewing out of MAGA officials in the campaign's closing weeks should be cause for condemnation and moral reflection.

Given the sorry state of today's Republican Party , we shouldn't expect either.

MAGA's Islamophobic hysteria is driven in one part by the national rise of Michigan's Democratic Senate nominee, Abdul El-Sayed (D), and in another by the right's open hostility to anyone they mistake for an immigrant . But Republicans' anti-Arab screeching has now reached such a fever pitch that their attacks no longer make sense even as coherent thoughts. Is it any surprise that Arab-American voters are now fleeing the Republican Party in droves?

Republicans provide daily evidence for why many Arab Americans who supported President Trump in 2024 are now defecting to the Democratic Party . After all, it's tough to claim your movement welcomes Arab-American votes when Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. can open a Michigan campaign event with the insane claim that "there's 500 million Arabs in the world, and yet they don't produce science, they don't win the Nobel Prize ... they don't produce literature."

It wouldn't kill Kennedy to read a book. He might even choose a work by the Syrian poet Ali Ahmad Said Esber, who writes under the pen name Adonis, or a work of fiction by Libyan novelist Ibrahim al-Koni, both of whom are considered leading contenders for this year's Nobel Prize in Literature . Or Kennedy might consider diving into the sciences with Dr. Omar Yaghi, the Jordanian chemist who won last year's Nobel Prize in Chemistry . But Kennedy clearly prefers the sound of his own voice, even if he doesn't know what he's talking about.

Trump is also no stranger to bashing Arab Americans — even those who supported him in 2024. In the last few weeks alone, Trump has accused El-Sayed of being a "jihadist" and a "terrorist," suggested he " go through a metal detector before he's allowed to go into the Senate ," and dismissively referred to El-Sayed as " Mohammed ." Trump's comments have been so extreme his former 2024 Michigan outreach co-lead Bishara Bahbah publicly condemned him for crossing a "red line."

"Any attack based on a person's religion is not acceptable," Bahbah told The Associated Press. "Abdul El-Sayed was born and raised in the United States. He's as American as they come."

Arab Americans and Muslims don't even need to represent a large share of a state's population to qualify for MAGA's targeted hatred. In Alabama, where Muslims represent only about 0.5 percent of the population , Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) recently singled them out as "the enemy inside the gates" in what the Alabama Reflector calls his "anti-Muslim crusade."

In Texas, where Muslims account for just 1 percent of residents , Gov. Greg Abbott (R) has ramped up attacks on the Muslim community in Plano over a planned Islamic community center that he claims will bring "sharia courts" to the Lone Star State, whatever that means.

Trump's MAGA movement returned Arab-American voters' loyalty with a heaping helping of vitriol and hatred. Now it's those voters' turn to have their say. A new Washington Post-Schar School poll published this month found that Arab Americans are taking MAGA venom at face value and moving away from a party that many conservative Arabs embraced just two years ago.

The leftward shift of America's Arab voters is undeniable, and almost all of it is driven by Republicans' overt hostility. In 2024, roughly 50 percent of Arab Americans supported Democratic candidates for Congress. After a year of being called terrorists and invaders by Trump and his allies, that number has climbed to nearly 60 percent.

A quarter of Arab Americans who voted for Trump in 2024 now say they plan to switch their vote and support Democrats this year, and a supermajority — 60 percent — say Trump is unfriendly to the Arab American community . Michigan alone is home to more than 200,000 registered Arab-American voters . In a race where Rep. Mike Rogers (R) is trailing El-Sayed by up to 6 points , those spurned Arab-American votes would have come in handy. Instead, Rogers and the Republicans chose to lob racist insults at them.

Republicans couldn't be clearer that their party rejects the very idea that an Arab American can be an American at all. For the 3.7 million Arab Americans who are looking for a political home, the Democratic Party is happy to welcome you.

Max Burns is a veteran Democratic strategist and founder of Third Degree Strategies.