US elections 2024: Arab Americans expect high turnout in Michigan's Dearborn

At 9pm, only a few people are milling about Lava Java, the smoky hookah lounge in Dearborn, Michigan, that’s hosting the election watch party for Arab Americans For Trump (AAFT).

There may be more members of the international and local press here than attendees.

But there’s an air of confidence and pride amongst Arab Americans who say they have worked tirelessly since the spring to ensure that former President Donald Trump’s campaign hears them. And indeed he has become the only presidential candidate to come to their doorstep, to the capital of Arab America.

As one of seven swing states in the US, Michigan is considered amongst those where even a small number of votes could determine the election result.

In 2020, for instance, the Democrats narrowly won Michigan. Four years earlier, Trump won the state by just 10,000 votes.

Among the organisers is Syrian-American resident Wasel Yousaf, who voted for Trump in 2016 and 2020, and appeared very relieved that so many other Arabs now feel the same way.

“I cannot say just one thing. [Trump] is a great guy. He’s so different now from 2016. He is so humble, so acceptable,” Yousaf told Middle East Eye.

“People start to love him now… he’s shown love to everybody.”

Yousaf has been the Michigan point man for AAFT and has been in regular contact with Massad Boulos, the Lebanese businessman who serves as a Trump advisor when it comes to Arab Americans. Boulos also happens to be the father-in-law of Trump’s youngest daughter, Tiffany.

Yousaf has met several of Trump’s family members and described the Trump clan as embodying family values akin to that of Arabs and their tight-knit culture.

“The right person always has many many enemies,” Yousaf said.

As he steps outside to greet the latest arrival to the makeshift party, he brings in the mayor of Dearborn Heights, Bill Bazzi.

Bazzi spent 21 years in the US Marines, after emigrating from southern Lebanon at the age of 12 and encountering the civil war there. Unlike his better-known counterpart in the city of Dearborn, Abdullah Hammoud, Bazzi endorsed Trump.

“One of the biggest reasons I endorsed Trump is because he’s been preaching the same thing: stop the war,” Bazzi told MEE.

His residents in Dearborn Heights have been struggling to afford basic necessities, he added, because “this economy is out of control” due to the inflation of the post-Covid-19 era.

And while Arabs have priorities, they’re not single-issue voters.

“We don’t have good leadership in the White House,” he said. “I don’t know who’s running this country.”

There seem to be even fewer people in this hookah lounge now as the media trickles out - even as Trump leads Harris in the early results.

Arab Americans not 'indifferent'

At McDonald Elementary, the sun was starting to set and a traffic jam was building around the school. Today, the school was a polling place for precincts one and two in east Dearborn, a neighbourhood that skews very heavily Arab.

Outside, comedian and attorney Amer Zahr’s booming voice could be heard around the premises, “Don’t forget to vote for the school board!” he said.

The Palestinian American and local resident is running for the Dearborn school board - one of at least half a dozen "down-ballot races" that civic engagement advocates here have pushed voters to engage in, even if they wanted to leave the top of the ballot empty and forego all the presidential candidates.

Media from around the country was at the site, including a staff writer from the New York Times who was trying to carry out his own exit poll at the front doors.

The election workers here told MEE that turnout would very likely surpass 2020 numbers by the time the polls closed. And back in 2020, there was no pre-election day, in-person voting to take into consideration. They looked pleased.

“A lot of people thought the Arab-American community was going to be indifferent and not come out and vote. That’s not true. It’s the opposite,” Zahr told MEE, in between wrangling incoming voters on the street.

“What’s happening is the Arab community is coming out, taking advantage of this historic opportunity to show that we can be a major factor [for change],” he said.

As voters walked out, the predominant answer to “Who did you vote for?” was either Donald Trump or Green Party candidate Jill Stein so far. More men appeared to have voted for Trump.