Arab and Muslim leaders risk blowback for endorsing Harris
Harris faces ongoing challenges in finding Muslim and Arab community leaders willing to publicly embrace her and risk blowback from their own constituents.
Last month, Mohammed Hassan, a longtime city councilor in Hamtramck, Michigan, the only Muslim-majority city in the country, got a call from someone with Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign asking him what they needed to do to win back disaffected Michigan Muslims.
“I shouted at them. I shouted, really, I said, ‘You guys are not doing anything! You’re doing nothing! You need to do much much more,’” Hassan said. “I made a big noise.”
That message, which Hassan was hardly the only one delivering, appears to have finally gotten through to the Harris campaign, which has in the past two weeks dramatically ramped up efforts to win back a group of voters that could be critical in Michigan and other battleground states.
But Harris faces ongoing challenges in finding Muslim and Arab community leaders willing to publicly embrace her and risk blowback from their own constituents angered by the continued U.S. support for Israel’s war in Gaza and Southern Lebanon.
Most Muslims have been reliable Democratic voters in recent years. But supporting Harris now can invite bitter and personal reproach from some parts of the community.
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