LONDON: Jill Stein, the Green Party's presidential candidate known for her strong support of Palestinian rights, has emerged as the favorite among Arab-American voters ahead of the November 5 U.S. presidential election, according to a recent poll.
Stein, who ran as a third-party candidate, received support from more than 45 percent of Arab Americans, according to a survey by the Arab American Anti-Discrimination Committee, the largest civil rights organization of Arab Americans.
This puts Stein, a physician and environmental activist, ahead of presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris, who received 27.5 percent of the vote in the same poll.
The survey was conducted between July 27 and 28 through a partnership between ADC, Molitico for data insights, and Community Pulse, which specializes in polling solutions.
According to Abed Ayoub, national executive director of ADC, Arab American voters are increasingly turning to Stein because of his advocacy for Palestinian human rights and his opposition to Israeli military actions in Gaza since October.
In a post on social platform X, he said, “Green Party candidate Dr. Jill Stein's 45.3% approval rating is consistent with previous polls, showing that she enjoys consistent support in the community thanks to her stance on Palestinian human rights.”
Stein has been a popular figure among Arab voters since the last ADC poll in May, leading with 25% support, compared to 7% and 2% for President Joe Biden and Republican nominee Donald Trump, who left office in July.
In 2022, 2.2 million people in the United States reported having Arab ancestry in that year’s Arab Community Survey. Most Arab Americans are native-born, and 85% of American Arabs are citizens.
The community has roots in all Arab countries, but most Arab Americans have ancestral ties to Lebanon, Egypt, Syria, Palestine, and Iraq. The top four states by Arab American population size are California, Florida, Minnesota, and Michigan.
Ayoub noted in his post that Biden's popularity among Arab Americans was due to “the outgoing president's staunch support for Israel's continued actions in Gaza.”
The Israeli military launched a bombing campaign in the Gaza Strip on October 7, 2023, in retaliation for a deadly attack led by Hamas in southern Israel, in which the Palestinian militant group took more than 200 hostages.
According to Gaza health officials, the Palestinian death toll in Gaza has surpassed 39,500, with at least 15,000 children killed and more than 12,000 injured.
Humanitarian organizations, human rights groups and governments around the world have repeatedly called for a ceasefire, but Israel has continued its military operations.
Stein has been a consistent critic of Biden and his administration for their continued support of Israel, warning in an August 1 post on X that the Israeli government was “dragging the United States into World War III.”
Following last week’s alleged killings by Mossad of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran and a senior Hezbollah official in Beirut, Stein criticized Biden and Harris for their “deafening silence” on “the massive escalation of Israel into a broader war.”
In a July 31 post on X, Stein called on the U.S. to “immediately end its support for Israel, order a ceasefire, and arrest war criminals[Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu].”
Haniya's killing on July 31 heightened fears of a full-blown regional conflict, with Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei vowing revenge and warning Israel that he was “paving the way for your harsh punishment.”
The Netanyahu government has not claimed responsibility or commented on Haniya’s death. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said the United States had “no knowledge or involvement” in the killing.
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• Arab Americans live in all 50 states, but up to 95 percent live in metropolitan areas.
• New York, Detroit, Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington, D.C., and Minneapolis are the top six metro areas.
• About 75 percent of Arab Americans live in 12 states: California, Michigan, New York, Texas, Florida, Illinois, New Jersey, Ohio, Minnesota, Virginia, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Virginia.
• About a quarter of Arab Americans are Muslim, and the rest have religious backgrounds such as Catholic, Orthodox, or Protestant.
But the day before Haniyeh's death, Israel claimed responsibility for killing Hezbollah's top commander, Fuad Shukr, in an airstrike on a building in south Beirut. Hezbollah promised a “firm” response to Shukr's death.
Regardless of whether the United States is involved in the escalation of this conflict, Biden’s Middle East policy has faced sharp criticism since October, with human rights groups urging the administration to halt arms transfers to Israel.
In late April, Amnesty International reported that US weapons supplied to Israel had been “used to commit serious violations of international humanitarian and human rights law and in a manner inconsistent with US law and policy.”
In May, the International Criminal Court's prosecutor, Karim Khan, requested arrest warrants for Netanyahu, his defense minister and three Hamas leaders, including Haniyeh, on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Chris Habibi, ADC’s national director of government affairs and advocacy, says the poll reveals two key insights. “First, President Biden is deeply unpopular with Arab Americans,” he told Arab News.
“Second, opposing genocide is good for our communities across the country.”
Habibi added that the poll results reflected “what we have been demanding for 10 months and 300 days while this genocide was ongoing: an immediate and permanent ceasefire and an arms embargo on all weapons sent to Israel.”
Biden suffered a major defeat in Michigan's Democratic primary in February, as a majority of voters in Dearborn, a city with a large Arab and Muslim population, chose a “no commitment” plan rather than vote for him.
According to USA Today, Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud publicly supported the “undisclosed” voter movement, citing Biden’s policies on the Israel-Gaza conflict.
In contrast, Stein has actively sought to attract Arab American voters in Michigan and elsewhere.
In a June interview with Arab News, Stein pledged that if elected he would end military support for Israel's “apartheid government” and push for genuine peace between Israelis and Palestinians.
“Arabs and Muslims have been taken for granted in America. They are victims of racial profiling, Islamophobia and anti-Arab violence in this country,” she said.
“The government is absolutely violating our constitutional rights by blocking our conversations. People are trying to protest this mass killing that we are seeing in real time on our iPhones and computer screens.”
“Sending weapons to Israel violates U.S. law,” Stein said. “It violates humanitarian rights and impedes the delivery of humanitarian assistance.”
“People who stand up for our legal and human values are being branded as criminals and accused of crimes,” she added.
Despite Stein's growing popularity among the Arab-American community, other presidential candidates still have a chance to win over more Arab and Muslim voters before November.
According to the ADC poll, 27.5% of respondents support Harris, 18% are undecided about whether to vote in November and 6% do not plan to vote.
“With nearly one in four voters undecided or unwilling to participate in the election, there’s ample room for Harris or another candidate to gain more support in their communities if they take the right stance,” ADC’s Ayoub wrote for X.
