Muslim Activists Helped Give Trump The White House — So Far, They Don’t Regret It

With weeks left in the 2024 election, Muslim Americans barnstormed mosques and community centers across Michigan with the purpose of preventing Vice President Kamala Harris — and the Democratic Party — from getting into the White House. They succeeded, and they don’t regret their efforts.

Those Muslim Americans told the Daily Caller that while they haven’t been thrilled with everything Trump has done in office, they are glad they cost Harris the election.

“I still stand behind our effort 100%,” Mahmoud Muheisen, the Abandon Harris Michigan Campaign Director, told the Caller. “If I could go back in time, knowing how it would turn out, I would do it again.”

“And I’m saying this as a student who’s involved in protests, and seeing that some students are facing deportation threats,” he added.

Abandon Harris Responds to 2024 Election Results pic.twitter.com/QvkgXwdWYe

— Abandon Harris (@Abandonbiden24) November 6, 2024

The effort to “abandon Harris” sprouted up in the Muslim American community in the months leading up to the presidential election, with the intention of punishing the Democratic Party for their handling of the Israel-Hamas war. (Stream Daily Caller’s latest documentary ‘Cleaning Up Kamala’ HERE)

The effect of the protest vote was evident across one key swing state. President Joe Biden won 70% of the votes of Dearborn, Michigan residents — where more than half of the population is Arab American — in 2020. In 2024, Trump won 42% of the vote in Dearborn, while Harris won 36%. Green Party candidate Jill Stein won 18% of Dearborn voters.

In Trump’s first 100-plus days in office, his administration has taken steps to try to end the Israel-Hamas war and bring peace to the Middle East. After repeatedly striking the Houthi rebels, the Trump administration announced that the terrorist group agreed to stop bombing ships in the Gulf of Aden and other locations. The administration has also revoked student visas of individuals involved in anti-Israel protests. Trump effectuated the return of the last American hostage in Gaza by negotiating directly with Hamas. And most recently, Trump took his first foreign trip across the Middle East, visiting Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Qatar.

It was a trip that caught the eyes of the Muslim American community, including Democrat Khalid Turaani, co-chair of the Abandon Biden campaign in Michigan, who told the Caller that he thought lifting sanctions on Syria was a positive step.

“We had our reservations about Trump, but he has proven himself to be a very decisive leader,” Turaani told the Caller. “There’s the element of him that is showmanship. I certainly did not like when he was talking about removing the people of Gaza from Gaza, and then moved into Rivera and all of that stuff. I was like, ‘Are you kidding?’ … Then I realized that this is more of his showmanship.”

Not fighting to punish Harris for her support for the genocide is disastrous strategy for the antiwar movement.

Trump is absolutely not an alternative.

But a sitting Vice Pres backing genocide needs to pay the price. The message is for both Dems & Reps. Genocide is a red line.

— Kshama Sawant (@cmkshama) October 10, 2024

Turaani has been impressed by Trump’s “decisiveness,” which he argued was proven when the president moved Mike Waltz from national security adviser to United Nations ambassador.

“I thought that was very decisive and very spot on,” Turaani said. “The conversation [around the firing] was ‘it’s because of the signal gate,’ but we also have the news that it was because the guy, I guess, did not get the memo on ‘America first,’ and you don’t have to be coordinating with the Israeli prime minister on Iran or anything else. So I thought it was pretty good.”

Rex Nazarko, the founder of Drive for 75, led a large effort to divert votes from Harris in Michigan. His group assigned activists to mosques and community centers to promote their message across the state. They used social media and text message campaigns and knocked on thousands of doors.

In some instances, the “Abandon Harris” protest vote threw its support behind Stein as another avenue to spoil the former vice president’s bid.

“We still stand by that effort. We are fairly sure that none of this realignment that we see now in the Middle East would have happened under a Democratic administration,” Nazarko told the Caller as he reflected back on Drive for 75’s work. 

Nazarko told the Caller that the Muslim community in Michigan has a “mixed bag of feelings” toward the Trump administration.

“There’s definitely certain moves by the administration that were not well received, like the targeting of pro-Palestinian student protesters, that kind of left a sour taste in a lot of people’s mouths post-election,” Narzarko told the Caller. 

But following Trump’s trip to the Middle East, there seems to be some guarded hope sprouting up among the Muslim American community.

“They’re cautiously optimistic about the realignment that’s happening in the Middle East and the United States, detaching from an Israel-centric Middle East policy to a region-central policy,” Narzarko told the Caller.

“Then obviously there’s pockets of the community who may — on domestic issues — may be pleased with his performance. And on economics. I’ve heard that expressed a few times,” he continued. 

Overall, the first several months of the Trump administration has left some Muslim Americans predicting that there could be a path forward for Republicans to embrace the Islamic faith community more permanently. Turaani told the Caller that Muslims in America are starting to realize they have more in common with the Republican Party, both socially and fiscally.

“I think Trump putting America first, I think, is a sign of leadership,” Turanni told the Caller. “To be honest with you, I’m pleasantly surprised.”