Today, Explained - How Gaza could decide the election

Episode Date: November 4, 2024

The key battleground state of Michigan could be decided by Arab American voters disappointed with Democrats' handling of the war in Gaza. Detroit Free Press opinion editor Khalil AlHajal and Michigan State University political scientist Matt Grossmann explain the stakes. This episode was produced by Miles Bryan, edited by Matt Collette, fact-checked by Laura Bullard, engineered by Andrea Kristinsdottir and Rob Byers, and hosted by Noel King. Transcript at vox.com/today-explained-podcast Support Today, Explained by becoming a Vox Member today: http://www.vox.com/members Buttons being handed out during early voting in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Photo by JEFF KOWALSKY / AFP via Getty Images. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It's Today Explained. More than 78 million Americans have already voted in the 2024 election. Polling still shows a very, very close race. This weekend, a shocking little poll from the Des Moines Register showed Kamala Harris three points ahead of Donald Trump in Iowa. And the prototypical example of a gold standard poll is the Iowa poll done by Jay Ann Selzer in Iowa. Her polls are known for their uncanny predictive accuracy. Iowa last broke for the Democrat Barack Obama in 2012. It was expected to go to Trump this year. So what does this new poll mean? Well, we don't know. The real polling was the friends we made along the way. We do know that seven states will decide this election. One

of them is Michigan. More than 200,000 Arab Americans live there, and many of them say they are voting on Gaza. If they do, the state that Joe Biden won in 2020 may go, as it did in 2016, for Donald Trump. Michigan, coming up. Amazon Pharmacy presents Painful Thoughts. The guy in front of me in the pharmacy line is halfway through an incredibly detailed 17-minute story about his gout. A story likely more painful than the gout itself. Next time, save yourself the pain and let Amazon Pharmacy deliver your meds right to your door. Amazon Pharmacy. Healthcare meds right to your door. Amazon Pharmacy. Healthcare just got less painful.

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Today Explained. Battleground States. Michigan. I chose journalism after kind of recognizing that there weren't enough Arab Americans represented in the media, which was a tough thing for my parents. What did they want? You know, the whole immigrant parent thing. You know, they want you to be a doctor, an engineer, maybe lawyer. But yeah, doctor is number one in the Arab community. They all want you to be a doctor. Khalil El-Hajel is deputy opinion editor at the Detroit Free Press. He's also a native of Dearborn, Michigan, which last year became the first Arab-majority city in the United States. This particular voting bloc could make the difference.

There's all sorts of issues folks care about, but definitely the number one issue is Gaza, the war in Gaza, and now Lebanon. Israeli forces have launched attacks across several parts of Lebanon on Sunday. An airstrike hit a residential area in the coastal city of Sidon, trapping civilians under rubble. We have a lot of Lebanese Americans in particular here in Michigan, Palestinian folks too, but with the expansion of the war to Lebanon, the level of pain and concern and agony over who to vote for has just really grown exponentially in recent weeks. It's been a very difficult year for Arab Americans here. And as we get closer to the election, you can just kind of feel the tension and the difficulty deciding who to vote

for, really. All right. So if we look at polling in Michigan, like in many other swing states, it is very, very, very tight. There is this significant Arab American community in Michigan. How important is this voting bloc when it comes to winning the state? It seems to be pivotal for the Harris campaign, I think. I'm not sure they see it that way, but I would imagine we're talking about 100,000 votes here in Michigan. In the last couple of presidential elections, it was decided by a matter of 150,000 votes

and I think as close as 10,000. What do the polling numbers show on Trump versus Harris? Nationwide, it's a split. There was a poll from the Arab American Institute of Arab Americans around the country that showed almost a 50-50 split nationwide. And that was a difference from previous polls that showed about 60-40 in favor of Democrats. There certainly are Americans who will vote for Donald Trump, and there are those who will come around on Kamala Harris. But there are a lot of folks who feel that their only choices are either Jill Stein or Cornel West, who visited Michigan a lot and who've made real overtures to Arab American communities, or do not vote at all. I had to convince my parents to vote in this election, and they did, but it required some arm twisting. They felt very sort of disenfranchised. We're going to get to Jill Stein and Cornel West in a bit, but let's talk about the two big campaigns and the attempts, if any, that they're making. What is the Harris campaign

doing to try to get the Arab American and Muslim vote? Earlier in the campaign, there did seem to be some efforts to win folks over. There was a large Arab-American Michigan contingent at the DNC. We're actually not asking her to adopt the full policy that every single one of my cousins would want her to adopt, which is a full arms embargo. But we need her to move in our direction. And there were a lot of negotiations about getting a Palestinian speaker on the stage that night. It didn't end up happening, which was a real disappointment.

Tell the vice president that I'm sitting outside. I'm not going anywhere. I hope she changes her mind. Thank you. Okay, I'm going to be sitting down right here. I think that was a really pivotal moment for a lot of folks who really felt insulted by that. There certainly have been times where Harris has answered questions on Gaza in ways that did distinguish her from President Biden. In her DNC speech, you know, she said, And the Palestinian people can realize their right to dignity, security, freedom, and self-determination. That sounded different from what we had been hearing for years in presidential politics.

It felt like a breakthrough. At the same time, that's a pretty low bar. I mean, it's really just a recognition that Palestinians are human beings who deserve equal rights. And I think that was appreciated. But I'm not sure it was enough to convince folks that the approach toward this very bloody war in Gaza would change in any way. You know, and that coupled with the, you know, not getting a Palestinian speaker on the stage, I think that left a lot of folks dejected. Many progressives have questioned Kamala Harris's decision to campaign side by side with Liz Cheney. It doesn't matter what party you're in. We all know this is a good and an honorable and a great nation. And we have to have leaders. You might say, I'm not going to agree on every issue, but we have to have leaders who take that seriously. How is that going over in Arab American communities there?

Yeah, not well. Huh? Not well. Yeah. I mean, as soon as the name Dick Cheney came up as a, as somebody who was being courted by the Harris campaign, that, that was, it was pretty painful. You know, folks associate that guy with the invasion of Iraq and, you know, all sorts of vile things from that period of time in the W. Bush era. It just seems like the Harris campaign is pursuing maybe more lower hanging fruit and folks who could maybe be more easily convinced.

And it feels like the Arab American voting bloc seems to be maybe more of a liability for the Harris campaign, whereas the Trump campaign is, you know, parading any Arab Americans they can get onto their stages. And I'm going to ask all of, if I could, all of my friends to come up from the Arab and Muslim part of Michigan. And I'd like to give them a big hand because they're going to vote for us and help us win. Yeah, how's that working? I mean, because for the Trump campaign, there is clearly a real opportunity here. What is Donald Trump doing? How is his campaign showing up in Michigan? They're showing up a lot. Both campaigns are showing up in Michigan. When it comes to the Arab community and the Muslim community, Trump seems to be

courting them. He's had a number of religious leaders and a couple of local mayors, Arab American mayors, who have showed up on stage and expressed support for him. As the president said, we just had a positive meeting with President Trump. We as Muslims stand with President Trump because he promises peace. He promises peace, not war. For whatever reason, he's got a hold of some folks in this community.

I don't think it's a huge segment of the community, but he has won over some prominent leaders and he's bringing them on stage as often as he can, which is a distinction from the Harris campaign, which appears to be more interested in winning over people who maybe were Republicans in the past and are dissatisfied now. It may be a good strategy. I don't know. But it hurts. All right. So if it's not Trump, if it's not Harris, then for people who still want to vote, it's going to be someone. You mentioned Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate. One poll of American Muslims from this month has her at 42 percent to Kamala Harris's 41 percent. producer, Miles Bryan, spoke to her about her pitch, and here's what she told him. Muslim Americans in particular are very resonant with our message.

And basically, we are the only anti-genocide, anti-war choice that's on the ballot. Specifically, you know, we are looking at the genocide and the fact that Americans do not want this genocide. Talk to me about why you think Jill Stein's message is resonating. She's been visiting Michigan repeatedly, attending Arab American functions. She is someone who has been a voice of truth in a sea of lies in our political system. And so here in Dearborn, in the heart, in the heartbeat of the Arab-American community, we welcome this evening for us presidential candidate Dr. Jill Saad. Telling them exactly what they want to hear when it comes to war and, you know,

and I think she even described as what's been happening in Gaza as genocide. The American people are in a very active state of uprising right now against this permanent war economy and this genocide. She shows up at these rallies wearing a keffiyeh, you know, a traditional Palestinian scarf around her shoulders. She's really embraced the Arab community. And literally, you know, you see her hugging folks out at these rallies. I think the same is true of Cornel West. And so Kamala Harris and the others would have to acknowledge their particular policy makes them war criminals. For some folks, that's the tough decision, whether it's Jill Stein or Cornel West. But then, you know, there's the

simple reality that neither of those two will win. And so for a lot of folks, it remains an agonizing decision. Is there any conversation in the Arab American community that you're aware of? If our votes go to Trump and Trump wins, the people who've historically sided with us, Democrats, progressives, are going to blame us. Yeah, I think so. I think about that a lot. You know, I've been thinking a lot about how to sort of stave that off and sort of prevent blame. And I don't think Arab Americans will deserve the blame for that if that happens. But honestly, I'm not sure that many Arab Americans are terribly concerned about it because they don't have a political home right now.

So whatever backlash comes, it's not going to be worse than the pain of the last year of watching your friends and, in many cases, your members, killed over and over again and seeing the war expand even as our leaders tell us they're working around the clock for a ceasefire. The level of pain of the last year has been, well, it's been worse than any of the Trump years, believe it or not. It's been excruciating at a level that I'm not sure anyone's really thinking about our future political position.

They don't have a political home now. They may not in the future. You know, unless there's some sort of resolution to this conflict and some hope for peace. That was Khalil El-Hajal of the Detroit Free Press coming up what close polls tell us about Michigan. Support for Today Explained comes from Ramp.

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defend reproductive freedom, fight discrimination and fight for all of our fundamental rights and freedoms. This Giving Tuesday, you can support the ACLU. With your help, they can stop the extreme Project 2025 agenda. Join the ACLU at aclu.org today. All right, Matt Grossman, you are the director of Michigan State's Institute for Public Policy and Social Research and a political science professor. We never like to ask people to predict too much, but we are one day out from the election and we've heard that the polls are 50-50, 50-50, 50-50 or like 46-47. What is a likely scenario that you can envision here when you look at polling like this? Because the seven swing states are so close, one of the most likely scenarios is actually that we've been wrong all along. The polls are off in some systematic fashion across the states.

And that means that either Harris or Trump wins all seven or close to all seven of the swing states. I think that's probably actually a pretty likely scenario since we're usually off on average. We're talking about polls that reach one to two out of 100 people. So if you think about going around the room talking to random people and seeing the first one out of 100 that's willing to talk to you about politics for 30 minutes, they're probably not going to be very representative. So it's kind of amazing that we get as close as we get. But if you told me it's the morning after the election and Michigan has made the difference, I would say the most likely scenario there is that Democratic weakness among Arab American voters and Black voters showed up, and that made a difference in Michigan more than in other places.

And the candidates are in the state right up until the end. What is Kamala Harris's closing argument? Well, there is a bit of dissent, I guess, within the Harris campaign and the broader Democratic apparatus. The Democratic super PAC, which has tested hundreds of messages, has repeatedly come back and said that actually the most effective messages at the end are about Harris herself and about Harris's economic policy proposals. Kamala Harris will cut taxes for working people and she'll lower everyday costs by taking on price gouging. Trump fights for billionaires like him. Kamala fights for us. But the campaign has remained somewhat focused, while including that message, on threats to democracy and the threat of Donald Trump. And let's be clear, we are all here because we are fighting for a democracy and for the right of people to be heard and seen.

We're not about the enemy within. So it'll be interesting to see which one they emphasize more at the end. This is the most money that has been spent in the presidential race. So they really do have the money to spend it all. But the message is a little bit different in the ads than it is from the candidate herself. In the first half of the show, we talked to Khalil Al-Hajal. He's an opinion editor at the Free Press. And he told us that the Arab American community in and around Detroit is

very angry at the Democratic Party. How much do you think this will hurt Kamala Harris? It is a small part of the voting population as a whole, but it is one that could swing in a strong direction this year. I think one thing that's misunderstood is that we talked to, say, the leaders of the uncommitted vote movement in the presidential primary, and we have this perception that Arab American voters are kind of liberals overall, but concerned about this one issue and willing to sit it out or vote for a third party candidate. But that's really not representative of the Arab American population as a whole. They have actually been more of a swing vote than people might think.

For example, in the 2022 midterm election, the Dearborn area actually moved toward the Republicans while the rest of the state was moving toward the Democrats. But it had, it was pre-Gaza, it had to do with controversy over LGBT books in schools and over kind of general post-pandemic school policy. Tense moments and heated exchanges at Dearborn School Board meeting Thursday night as parents, residents, and community stakeholders sounded off on LGBTQ books in the district's library system. So it's a constituency that has a lot of people who are socially conservative. It also has a lot of small business owners and people who are economically

conservative. And yet, since 9-11, have viewed the Democratic Party as their home, as the party that supports them, and the Republican Party as the party that opposes them. So it'll be interesting to see if not only do you get lower support for the Democrat this time, but actually increased Trump's support, even though it might seem odd, given that Trump's position on Israel is at least as pro-Netanyahu, if not more, than the Biden administration and Harris. The other demographic that you mentioned that Kamala Harris has had some trouble with is Black voters. We've covered this all year long. Black men in particular

are interested in Donald Trump in greater numbers than before. What specifically is Kamala Harris failing to do with this demographic? Or maybe a better way of putting it is if in the days after the election, we learn that black men did turn toward Donald Trump. Is that a is that something that the Trump campaign did right or that the Harris campaign did wrong? Maybe neither. These are long term trends in progress. The the age gradient on the white vote is that, you know, the older you are, the more likely you are to be a Republican, because it's sort of the progression of losing the cemented tie that the Democrats had to black voters from the civil rights movement and the role of the Republican Party in opposing some of the gains that African-Americans have seen within the Democratic Party. So in some ways, it is kind of part of an ideological realignment or an educational realignment that may be happening kind of regardless of the candidates. Four years ago, Donald Trump only got about 8% of the black vote. The polls show that he is making inroads among black male voters. The former president speaking at a black church in Detroit

continued his attacks on immigrants, insisting that the black community is being hurt by those who are entering the country illegally. All right, let's talk about Donald Trump. What is his closing argument to the great state of Michigan? Well, again, you have a little bit of a differentiation between what the campaign is running on the airwaves, which I take to be the poll tested research supported message, which is clearly just compare the Biden administration to the Trump administration. Their Bidenomics led to the highest inflation in 40 years, highest gas prices ever, skyrocketing interest rates, unaffordable housing. Yet Kamala Harris is clueless.

We are very proud of Bidenomics. And in Michigan, you know, there's a particular gain to talking about nostalgic politics, talking about the way things used to be, because we're a state that used to be, you know, in the top 15 or 20 in income in the U.S. and are now in the bottom 10 or 15 in income in the U.S. So it's a place that really did think that things were better before, at least in economic terms. And so the Trump's message, which is the same nationally, but has a chance to land with Michigan. Now, one, you know, again, it's hard to get the candidate on the same message, especially with Trump. Trump using violent rhetoric as he called Cheney a war hawk.

Let's put her with a rifle standing there with nine barrels shooting at her. OK, let's see how she feels about it. What he's going to talk about in his last few speeches, we don't know. He's ending in Grand Rapids, as he did in the previous two campaigns. So clearly some symbolic importance to Michigan as well. All right. So Michigan is a toss-up. Much of the country, the polls tell us, is a toss-up. What does the uncertainty in Michigan tell us about what the entire country is weighing this year? Well, first, it's sort of hard to say whether it's uncertain because there's a whole

bunch of people who haven't made up their mind, or if it's just uncertain because we're not great at polling. I do want to hold out that second possibility. We could have the election and it could be six points more to the Harris side, or six points more to the Trump side, which would look in our times like a landslide. And that would just be an average polling error. And it probably is not the case that a whole bunch of people just, if that happens, that a whole bunch of people just made up their mind at the end. It is instead that we were just wrong all along. But I do think it's important to say it will have been 40 years since a presidential

candidate won by 10 points or more in 1984. So we just have not had landslide elections. We have been fighting at the middle for a shrinking number of voters who haven't made up their mind between the two sides. And so not any easy way out of this two-sided system. That was Matt Grossman of Michigan State. Miles Bryan produced today's episode and Matthew Collette edited. Laura Bullard fact-checked and Rob Byers and Andrea Christen's daughter engineered. I'm Noelle King. It's Today Explained. Thank you. you