Senior members of the Biden campaign team, including campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez, were snubbed by Arab and Muslim voters in suburban Detroit when the group tried to meet with them. And there was a meeting planned between Biden's Arab supporters and campaign staff that was canceled.
The two incidents show the tension between Biden and a small but important constituency in a swing state.
Assad Turfe, who was organizing a meeting of Arab leaders and Biden's campaign in Dearborn, found fierce resistance from his neighbors.
"As the community got to learn about the meeting, there was definitely a lot of outrage and, ultimately, the decision was made to cancel the meeting," said Turfe, the deputy county executive of Wayne County whose family is from Lebanon.
Meanwhile, leaders from “Abandon Biden,” a movement trying to discourage voters from supporting Biden in November, spoke to hundreds of people at a local mosque prior to the campaign staffer's visit.
"Unless something drastic happens, you have lost the Arab American and Muslim community. At this point, from what I can see, there's no winning them over. That was the idea of the meeting," Turfe said. "Until there's a cease-fire, the overall consensus in the community is they're not welcome here, essentially."
Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud, Wayne County Commissioner Sam Beydoun and Democratic state Reps. Alabas Farhat of Dearborn and Abraham Aiyash of Hamtramck were all invited to the meeting organized by Turfe.
"This pushback is not just about failed policy — it's about humanity," Farhat said. "It's unrealistic to expect that political conversations will re-secure our support for the president when only a cease-fire can truly reopen that door."
Some of the Arab-Americans are upset because they have yet to hear anything from Democratic leaders.
"Since October 7th, I have received ZERO correspondence from White House, DNC, or MDP leadership about the concerns from our community on the ongoing genocide unfolding in Gaza," Aiyash said on social media.
Hammoud, the Dearborn mayor, tweeted Friday that it's "not a moment for electoral politics."
"When elected officials view the atrocities in Gaza only as an electoral problem, they reduce our indescribable pain into a political calculation," Hammoud wrote. "I will not entertain conversations about elections while we watch a live-streamed genocide backed by our government."
Prominent state Democrats have voiced concern about Arab Americans in Michigan — who tend to vote Democratic — staying home or even voting for the Republican nominee in November could have a significant impact in the battleground state. Biden defeated former President Donald Trump in Michigan in 2020 by about 154,000 votes or 3 percentage points.
“I don’t believe that the Biden administration, at the senior top level, understands how big of a problem this is and how upset and angry the community is,” Turfe said.
That's not surprising. The Biden campaign has a lot more pressing concerns than the votes of a few hundred thousand Muslims.
That is, until they don't vote or vote for Trump. Then they'll rue the day their futile efforts to reach out failed so miserably.
And with an attitude like Lexis Zeidan's, a 31-year-old Christian Palestinian American and activist in Dearborn, Biden may be in more trouble than anyone in his campaign thought.
“It is completely tone-deaf for his senior campaign official to believe they could set foot in this community and believe we’d like to meet with the campaign team of a murderer,” Zeidan said.
Dearborn Mayor Hammon offered some counsel to Biden.
“Little bit of advice — if you’re planning on sending campaign officials to convince the Arab American community on why they should vote for your candidate, don’t do it on the same day you announce selling fighter jets to the tyrants murdering our family members,” Hammoud wrote.
Note to Biden: voters who call you a "murderer" or a "tyrant" usually don't give you their support.
