As the United States presidential election approaches, the race to attract voters has intensified. Among the different constituencies the Democrats and Republicans are battling over, there is one that stands out: the Muslim community.
Although Muslims constitute roughly 1 percent of the American population, they are an important voting bloc because they are concentrated in swing states, which are often narrowly won in elections.
In this election cycle, the Muslim community seems more united than ever over a single political issue: the war in Gaza. Any candidate hoping to win over large segments of Muslim voters would have to address community demands for an end to the bloodshed in Palestine.
This is according to a new study published by the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding (ISPU) in partnership with Emgage and Change Research. It is based on a survey conducted in late June and early July focused on how Muslims in three swing states – Georgia, Pennsylvania and Michigan – intend to vote in the 2024 presidential election.
What we found is that President Joe Biden’s handling of the war in Gaza has turned Muslims, who in 2020 were some of his biggest supporters, into his sharpest detractors.
In 2020, about 65 percent of Muslim voters in these states showed up to cast their ballots for Biden. This support was vital to his electoral victory because he won key swing states by small margins. He won Georgia by just 12,000 votes, a state where more than 61,000 Muslims voted, and Pennsylvania by 81,000 votes, where 125,000 Muslims voted.
By contrast, in our survey, conducted before Biden dropped out of the presidential race, only 12 percent of respondents said they would vote for him, marking a dramatic drop in support not seen among any other group studied. While this impacts the presidential race, it has also manifested in a broader disillusionment with the establishment of the Democratic Party.
The war on Gaza has unified Muslim voters in a way that no other issue has in recent memory. According to the 2020 American Muslim Poll conducted by ISPU, healthcare (19 percent), the economy (14 percent) and social justice (13 percent) were the top voting issues for Muslim voters.
Compare that with 2024: Across the partisan spectrum, the top priority of Muslim voters in Georgia, Pennsylvania and Michigan is the war in Gaza (61 percent), followed by keeping the US out of foreign wars (22 percent).
Reduction of military aid to Israel also garnered the support of the vast majority of Muslim voters in our study, who, regardless of partisan sentiments, all overwhelmingly see this policy as a reason to vote for a candidate. While a war overseas may seem far from the daily concerns of American Muslim voters, many see the US role – providing unconditional aid and diplomatic cover to Israel – as complicity in the continued oppression of Palestinians.
The importance of the war in Gaza for Muslim voters was made clear months before we conducted our survey. The Muslim community played a leading role in the Uncommitted National Movement, which urged Democratic voters to vote “uncommitted” in presidential primaries in their states. The initiative managed to get more than 700,000 Democrats to do so, making clear their demand for a change in the Biden administration’s tone and policy on Israel and Palestine.
