Politics

Dems’ Israel Split Could Spell Big Trouble For Biden In Michigan, Poll Finds

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Reagan Reese White House Correspondent
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President Joe Biden is not as popular as he once was among Muslims and Arab Democrats in Michigan, according to a Lake Research Partners poll released Monday. The president has come under fire from some in his party for his arguably unwavering pro-Israel stance.

The support from the Muslim and Arab American community has always been key to Democrats’ success in Michigan, which has about 240,000 members of the community, according to NBC News. Biden won the state by 150,000 votes in the 2020 presidential election. Now, about two-thirds of Michigan Muslim and Arab Americans are saying that they will vote to replace Biden as president, according to a Lake Research Partners poll, reported first by NBC News.

“Biden’s extremely poor performance among Arab, Muslim and young voters of his own party is historic and frightening,” Waleed Shahid, a Democratic strategist, told NBC News. “Biden is risking handing the future of American democracy to Trump by providing [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu’s far-right government an unpopular blank check to wage a reckless war.”

Three-quarters of the Muslim and Arab community in Michigan said they would potentially vote for a third-party candidate, the poll shows.

The poll surveyed 513 most likely Democratic voters in Michigan with oversamples of Arab and Muslim Democrats. The survey was conducted from Oct. 30 to Nov. 2 and has a margin of error of 4.9 percentage points.

A digital billboard welcomes US President Joe Biden to Israel on October 18, 2023 in Tel Aviv, Israel. President Biden will meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as well with President Isaac Herzog, and with the families of the hostages taken by Hamas. Jordan cancelled a visit with Biden that was supposed to happen after he left Israel. As Israel prepares to invade the Gaza Strip in its campaign to vanquish Hamas, the Palestinian militant group Hamas who launched a deadly attack in southern Israel on October 7th, worries are growing of a wider war with multiple fronts, including at the country's northern border with Lebanon. Countries have scrambled to evacuate their citizens from Israel, and Israel has begun relocating some communities on its northern border. (Photo by Leon Neal/Getty Images)

A digital billboard welcomes US President Joe Biden to Israel on October 18, 2023 in Tel Aviv, Israel.(Photo by Leon Neal/Getty Images)

Since Hamas launched a terrorist attack Oct. 7 on Israel, Biden and his administration have pledged the United States’ support to Israel throughout its war. Some Democrats and members of the Muslim and Arab American community have criticized Biden’s pro-Israel stance.

The National Muslim Democratic Council, which includes Democratic Party leaders from swing states like Michigan, Pennsylvania and Ohio, promised to mobilize “allied voters to withhold endorsement, support or votes” if Biden did not call for a ceasefire by Oct. 31 at 5:00 p.m.

Some long-time allies of the president are warning that how he has tied himself close to Israel could leave the U.S. to bear responsibility for how the country carries out its war. Democratic Washington Rep. Pramila Jayapal has expressed concern that the president’s response to the Israel-Hamas war could cost the president votes within the party. (RELATED: Former Kamala Aides Revolt Against Her For Being Too Pro-Israel)

Young Democrats are also threatening to support another candidate over Biden in the 2024 election over his support for Israel, with a 28-year-old woman at a pro-Palestine protest telling The New York Times that she feels “betrayed” by the president.

“This poll illustrates what Detroit Action and members in our community have expressed numerous times,” Branden Snyder, the executive director of Detroit Action, who partnered with Lake Research Partners to conduct the poll, told NBC News. “The plight of these families suffering under a violent, colonial occupation resonates with our fight for all oppressed people, in the U.S. and abroad.”