US Election: Green Party candidate Jill Stein told Reuters on Sunday (Oct. 6) that Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, may lose the election due to the general outrage among Arab Americans and Muslims over US backing for Israel’s wars in Gaza and Lebanon.
According to polls, Harris and former president Donald Trump, her Republican opponent, are almost even with 49% and 48% of the vote, respectively, while Stein is predicted to get barely 1% of the vote on November 5.
However, in battleground areas like Michigan, Arizona, and Wisconsin, where they have sizable populations that contributed to President Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election, Stein has seen an increasing level of support among Arab Americans and Muslims.
Following a gathering in the Dearborn, Michigan, suburb of Detroit that drew over one hundred attendees, Stein told reporters, “The Democrats have lost the Muslim American and the Arab American vote.”
“They’re going to be losing enough swing states that they will not win and they cannot win.”
Harris was either ahead of Trump or tied with him in almost all seven states that might determine the election (Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Nevada, Georgia, and North Carolina), according to a Cook Political Report survey conducted from September 19–25.
However, in an August survey conducted by the Council on American Islamic Relations, Stein—who has been advocating for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza and an immediate US arms embargo on Israel—won 40% of the vote among Muslims in Michigan, surpassing both Trump and Harris among Muslims in Arizona and Wisconsin.
If Democrats called for and worked to implement an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and Lebanon and stopped selling weapons to Israel, they may be able to win back those votes, but as of now, she added, there was little indication that they would.
The Biden administration has long indicated support for a ceasefire in Gaza and has called for an immediate 21-day truce across the Israel-Lebanon border, along with a number of US allies, including France. However, agreements have proven hard.
When asked whether she would serve as a “spoiler” for another Trump administration, Stein said that although it would be “terrible,” so would four more years of Democratic control, considering the high cost of living, the conflicts in Gaza and Lebanon, and the assaults on civil freedoms.
“Both Democrats and Republicans will do nothing to improve this terrible situation. Thus, we assert that this race contains no less wickedness,” she stated.
In the last few days, Harris has extended her reach; on Friday, she spoke with a small group of Muslim and Arab American leaders in Flint, Michigan, and she sent her running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, to participate in a Muslim Zoom call.
Co-chair of the Michigan Abandon Harris campaign Farah Khan said she would support a third-party candidate. The statement, “We are trying to… punish Harris,” came from her. “We may not be in a large (enough) number to put somebody in office, but we are definitely in the numbers to take somebody out of the office.”
In addition, Trump is courting Arab and Muslim voters. On Saturday, his campaign established an office in Hamburg, a Detroit suburb, where Amer Ghalib, the mayor, is a Yemeni-American and has embraced Trump.
According to Stein, Harris was also losing favor among Black males, Latinos, and certain union workers—many of whom had soured on the Democratic Party.
“Working people feel abandoned and betrayed by the Democratic Party,” she said. “It’s not like the Republicans are making things good for working people, but because the Democrats make promises and betray them, they seem to be punished by their traditional base,” she said. “That train has left the station.”
