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The Dearborn, Michigan-led movement to ditch President Biden and later Vice President Kamala Harris ended up throwing its support behind President-elect Trump on Election Day.
"They were seeing that President Trump was giving a little attention to the Arab and Muslim community and Vice President Harris was sort of shutting down our community," Mike Hachem, a Dearborn-based leader of the Abandon Biden movement, said of Dearborn voters in an interview with Fox News Digital Thursday.
The comments come after Trump’s victory in the 2024 election, with the president-elect carrying the critical battleground state of Michigan along the way. That victory was in no small part because of the Detroit suburb of Dearborn, a city with the largest per capita Muslim population in the country that sent a shocking message by supporting Trump’s bid to return to the White House.
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Traditionally a dependable Democratic voting bloc, displeasure with the Biden administration’s handling of the conflict in Gaza caused many Muslim Americans in Michigan to spark a movement to "Abandon Biden," resulting in over 100,000 voting "uncommitted" instead of supporting the president’s re-election bid during the Democratic primary earlier this year.
That angst over the administration’s handling of the war carried over to Harris when she was elevated to the top of the Democratic ticket, with activists around Dearborn arguing the vice president had not done enough to earn back the votes of the city’s Muslim community.
But despite the widespread dissatisfaction with Democrats, many in the community expressed skepticism about throwing their support behind Trump, with some pointing to a first term that featured robust support for Israel and restrictions on travel from multiple Muslim-majority countries to the United States.
Hachem, who would go on to help launch the Arab Americans for a Better America PAC, set out to change that, teaming up with like-minded members of the community and raising funds that were used for outreach and advertisement in support of Trump in the Dearborn area.
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Meanwhile, Trump seemingly began to pick up some momentum with Muslim leaders in the state, earning the endorsement of multiple Muslim mayors and religious leaders in southeast Michigan.
The combined effort seemingly paid off, with Trump winning 42.5% of the vote in Dearborn, while Harris won just 36.2% and Green Party candidate Jill Stein, who also made a large appeal to the Dearborn community, pulling in 18.37%.
The result marked a stark departure from how Dearborn voted in the 2020 election, which saw 68.97% of the city’s voters support Biden compared to just 29.72% who supported Trump. This year also saw Trump take nearby Dearborn Heights, another city with a large Muslim population, with 44% of that city’s voters casting ballots for the former president compared to 38% who supported Harris.
"The Arab and Muslim population looked at it as, ‘Hey, we’re getting the attention now, we’re getting the recognition that we fought 60 years to get, and now President Trump is putting us on the stage,'" Hachem said. "President Trump is acknowledging that we exist and that we are part of the fabric of this nation."
