The state's Palestinian- and Lebanese-American communities organized a dissent campaign in the Democratic primary against President Joe Biden's support for Israeli wars.
asserted
communities → organize → wars
Biden responded by mocking the idea that Republicans would be better for Arab Americans, and Vice President Kamala Harris made a hawkish pro-war closing pitch in Michigan.
asserted
Harris → respond → Michigan
Republican candidate Donald Trump, meanwhile, courted Muslim voters.
asserted
Trump → court → voters
Unsurprisingly, Middle Eastern diasporas swung heavily to Trump and third parties, perhaps by enough to win Trump the state.
asserted
diasporas → swing → state
Now the pendulum is swinging back around.
asserted
pendulum → swing → ?
The Arab-majority city of Dearborn went from only 36 percent percent for Harris in 2024 to 82 percent for Democratic Senate candidate Abdulrahman Mohamed "Abdul" El-Sayed this year.
asserted
city → go → Sayed
And that helped push Michigan back into Democratic hands.
asserted
that → help → hands
Part of the Dearborn swing was a home-field advantage: El-Sayed is the son of Egyptian immigrants who was born in the Detroit suburbs.
asserted
who → bear → suburbs
But it also reflects the fact that Trump, who had closed the 2024 campaign in Michigan alongside Muslim clergy and promised to end U.S. wars in the Middle East, spent the 2026 campaign touting his war with Iran and bashing El-Sayed for his name.
asserted
who → reflect → name
And the last-minute defection of Rep. Haley Stevens (D–Mich.) to the Republican candidate's camp brought Israel back to the forefront of the race.
asserted
defection → bring → race
Arabs (including Christian Arabs) are around 2 percent of Michigan's population, and Muslims (including non-Arabs) are similarly around 2 percent.
asserted
Muslims → include → Arabs
But electoral math allows them to punch above their weight.
asserted
them → allow → weight
As Cubans in Florida spent decades showing, a bloc that is up for grabs in a state with tight margins can punch above its weight.
asserted
that → spend → weight
One reason they have been up for grabs is because politicians from both parties have chosen to target the Middle East and its diasporas.
asserted
politicians → choose → East
I'm not even a Muslim, but the fact that Muslims are being targeted in such a demeaning, racist fashion is just crossing a red line," Bishara Bahbah, the Jerusalem-born founder of the 2024 group Arab Americans for Trump, told The New Yorker last month.
asserted
Bahbah → target → Yorker
"I mean, a lot of the values of the Republican Party match with the values of the Arab and Muslim American voters, which is fine, but sometimes there is a breaking point because when there is no respect for the community, how is the community going to behave?
asserted
community → mean → community
Trump told supporters in October that El-Sayed's real name was "Adulbabababababa Mohamed."
asserted
name → tell → October
In the same speech, he bragged about the war in Iran and said that "if you're in doubt about somebody's name from the Middle East, just say Mohamed."
asserted
you → brag → Mohamed
A couple of weeks before the election, Trump told a Michigan rally that he had come "to keep a jihadist Muslim Brotherhood member from becoming a United States senator."
asserted
he → tell → member
Many Muslim Americans understood the name joke to be an insult against Islam in general, according to Ali Harb, a Lebanese-American independent journalist who spent most of his life in Dearborn.
uncertain
who → understand → Dearborn
He tells Reason about a common sentiment he has heard in the community: "Yeah, I'm a Republican, but how can I vote for someone who insulted my prophet?"
asserted
who → tell → prophet
El-Sayed's Republican opponent, Mike Rogers, accused El-Sayed of supporting the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist party in Egypt that briefly took power in 2012 and 2013.
asserted
that → accuse → 2012
During the elections after Egypt's 2011 revolution, El-Sayed's sister wrote about how she disagreed with her family's support for the Muslim Brotherhood.
asserted
she → write → Brotherhood
After the Brotherhood won those elections, El-Sayed himself signed a petition by Egyptian Americans encouraging newly-elected President Mohammad Morsi to "purge the media and the police."
asserted
Sayed → win → media
Pressed about the Muslim Brotherhood during a 2026 rally, El-Sayed disavowed the party and said that he has no "higher-order allegiance than to the Constitution" and its religious freedoms.
asserted
he → press → Constitution
Ironically, Rogers himself struck a supportive tone after the 2012 elections, stating that "there are moderate Muslim Brotherhood individuals we are going to have to reach out to and talk to."
asserted
we → strike → elections
Although many Arabs in Michigan indeed disagree with the Muslims Brotherhood—especially Christians and Shi'a Muslims—it's hard to separate these questions about Egyptian politics from the religious and ethnic attacks on El-Sayed.
asserted
it → disagree → Sayed
The Senate Leadership Fund, a Republican-aligned committee, ran an ad saying El-Sayed wants to force American women to wear the veil.
asserted
Sayed → align → veil
At one of his own rallies, Sen. Bernie Moreno (R–Ohio) said El-Sayed should be "nowhere near Washington" because he doesn't understand "that Jesus came here for our salvation.
asserted
Jesus → say → salvation
It's also hard to separate these attacks from a hawkish foreign policy towards the Middle East.
asserted
It → separate → East
Rogers is a long-time hawk running on his national security credentials.
asserted
Rogers → run → credentials
During his previous congressional tenure from 2001 to 2015, he voted for the Iraq War.
asserted
he → vote → War
Former Rep. Justin Amash (L–Mich.), the first registered Libertarian in Congress and the son of a Palestinian refugee, called Rogers "one of the chief architects of the modern surveillance state and a champion of the forever war."
asserted
Amash → register → war
This year, Rogers supported Trump's decision to start a war with Iran.
asserted
Rogers → support → Iran
During the televised debate, he argued that El-Sayed "doesn't believe Iran is any more dangerous than Israel.
asserted
Iran → televise → Israel
This is an absolute non-starter if you're going to send somebody back to the United States Senate."
asserted
you → go → Senate
El-Sayed had claimed that Israel "pushed us to go to war in Iran" in order to achieve "the annexation of southern Lebanon," where Israel is fighting the Iranian-backed militia Hezbollah; he also blamed the war for Michiganders' high cost of living.
asserted
he → claim → living
"Trump came to this city promising to bring peace and end the wars, and instead we got the mother of all wars….He gave Israel a blank check to destroy south Lebanon," Harb says, pointing out that Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud's family hails from Bint Jbeil, Lebanon, "a city that no longer exists."
asserted
that → come → Jbeil
A convoluted last-minute drama involving El-Sayed's former primary opponent, Stevens, drove home that the election was about the Middle East.
asserted
election → involve → East
Rebellion PAC, run by the leftist talk show host Cenk Uygur, ran an ad accusing Rogers of caring more about Israelis than Americans, who it said were forced to pay "for killing Palestinians" and for the war in Iran.
asserted
it → run → Iran
…and 13 more, not listed.
The Aporia
