Why Arab Americans don’t want to vote for Biden in 2024

Even before the Israel-Gaza war began, Arab and Muslim Americans were losing faith in the Democratic Party — for reasons that had little to do with foreign policy. They had become increasingly skeptical of the party’s leftward turn on cultural and social issues; lessons with LGBTQ+ themes in public schools had become a particular flash point. Those debates now seem small and fleeting.

In times of actual war, mere culture war is a luxury. Over the Thanksgiving break, disillusion about the Biden administration’s embrace of Israel during its bombardment of Gaza was the mood music for my dinner-table conversations with friends and family members, four of whom are Arab Americans. All four said they would not vote for President Biden in 2024, after having done so in 2020.

Four people are just four people, of course, but these vote-or-don’t-vote conversations are widespread. According to an October survey of Arab Americans, only 17 percent plan to vote for Biden, down from 35 percent in April and 59 percent in 2020. And for the first time since polling firm Zogby Strategies started tracking them in 1996, more Arab Americans now identify as Republicans (32 percent) than Democrats (20 percent). Sixty-seven percent of respondents rate Biden’s response to the Israel-Gaza war negatively.