For Many Arab Americans in Dearborn, Trump Made the Case for Their Votes

Ameen Almudhari was one of thousands of people in the majority-Arab community of Dearborn, Mich., who helped Joe Biden win the city and defeat Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election.

Four years later, Mr. Almudhari had had enough.

This week, he joined thousands of other Dearborn residents in voting for Mr. Trump, helping him score a stunning win in a place that seemed an unlikely source of support in the former president’s bid to return to the White House.

Standing next to his 10-year-old son outside an elementary school on the north side of Dearborn on Tuesday evening, Mr. Almudhari, 33, explained his change of heart, part of a remarkable turnabout in Dearborn, which is just outside Detroit.

He was, he said, fed up with Mr. Biden’s support of Israel and Ukraine and said the death and destruction being underwritten by the United States drove his decision to back Mr. Trump.

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His son, Khaled, interrupted him with a smiling comment: “Trump will end the war!”

Indeed, Mr. Trump has said as much, and the promise was among a host of reasons cited by voters in Dearborn for the wave of support from Arab and Muslim Americans for Mr. Trump.

Unofficial results released by the city of Dearborn show that Mr. Trump won 42 percent of the vote in Dearborn, compared with 36 percent for Ms. Harris and 18 percent for the Green Party candidate, Jill Stein.

In 2020, similar results released after the election showed that Mr. Biden had won almost 70 percent of votes by Dearborn residents.

Ms. Harris, who became the Democratic nominee after Mr. Biden withdrew over the summer, was ultimately unable — or unwilling — to escape the shadow of the Biden administration’s decisions in the Middle East. {snip}

Not making a clear break with Mr. Biden, even as she was vying for the White House, made Ms. Harris resoundingly unpopular in Dearborn. Her campaign chose not to have her hold public rallies or meetings in the city, perhaps fearing that any such event would be greeted with protests.

This week, the sentiments of Arab and Muslim Americans in Dearborn were heard through the ballot. In interviews with The Times on Tuesday outside polling stations, voters backing Mr. Trump said they wanted to give him a chance to rein in wars across the world and bring peace to the Middle East.

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Many voters brushed aside comments Mr. Trump has made that were critical of Muslims, and some of them cited his willingness to visit Dearborn and bring prominent local Muslim leaders onstage at a recent campaign rally as evidence of an olive branch.

Others in the city said that a bigger reason for their support was that they believed Mr. Trump was better on the economy. Concerns over incorporating L.G.B.T.Q. issues in local schools’ curriculum came up among some voters as well.

Abdullah Hizam, 34, said that people had tried “to scare us from voting for Trump” by citing such things as Mr. Trump’s restrictions on migration from some Muslim-majority countries such as Yemen, where Mr. Hizam is from.

But that didn’t shake his support.

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