Majority of Arab Americans plan to vote for Biden: poll
The majority of Arab voters in the United States plan to vote for Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden over incumbent Donald Trump, a new poll has found.
The survey, released on Tuesday by the Arab American Institute (AAI), showed that 59 percent of Arab-identifying voters said they were planning to cast their ballot for Biden, with 35 percent saying they would vote for Trump.
Most voters said they viewed Trump as "ineffective in addressing most issues of priority concern to their community".
The poll also found that a high Arab voter turnout is expected in the 3 November elections, with more than 80 percent saying they were "very likely" to cast a ballot.
It said the Arab American vote would be most critical in the key battleground states of
Michigan, where Arab Americans may count for as much as five percent of the vote, and Ohio and Pennsylvania, where they number between 1.7 and two percent of likely voters.
Still, the AAI said, while Biden was leading, the margin of votes between Biden and Trump - 58 percent vs 35 percent - was closer than that observed in its poll for the 2016 election, in which Hillary Clinton scored 58 percent and Trump 25 percent.
The findings appeared to correlate with a poll of Muslim voters conducted by the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding (ISPU), which found Trump's approval rating among the faith group had increased by 10 percent over the past four years.
In recent weeks, the Biden campaign has increased its outreach with Arab and Muslim communities, with Jill Biden, the former vice-president's wife, telling residents in Dearborn last week that their vote could make the difference this election.
Arabs across the Middle East - including those who do not hold US citizenship - also prefer Biden over Trump, a separate survey by British pollster YouGov found on Tuesday.
The survey, which polled 3,097 people across the Middle East and North Africa, found that if Arabs were to choose a US president out of the nominated candidates, Biden would win in a landslide.
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