US elections 2024: Some Arab Americans look beyond Harris for place in Democratic Party

If you’re not coming up against any traffic, Michigan's downtown Detroit is just a 20-minute drive from the heart of Dearborn, known as the capital of Arab-majority America. 

On Monday night, Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz held his final campaign rally before election day, arriving after 1030pm local time at Detroit's Hart Plaza to deliver a five-minute address to a crowd of about two thousand people. They had been waiting since the doors opened five hours earlier.

A DJ kept the crowd on their toes with top 40 hits and TikTok-famous tunes until Jon Bon Jovi and Michael Stipe of the 90s band REM took to the stage. 

There was, without a doubt, a sense of hope, joy and confidence that this was the right place at the right time, for the right candidate, and the right party. 

Tuesday’s vote, Walz said at the top of his remarks, boils down to the protection of women’s rights. It was a reference to the US Supreme Court’s conservative majority which overturned national abortion rights. 

The female-heavy crowd, young and old, showed up predominantly for that reason. 

“She's a woman and she's for women,” one enthusiastic voter told Middle East Eye. “I'm a retired nurse. I like everything. She stands for good,” she said of Vice President Kamala Harris, who is competing against former President Donald Trump of the Republican Party for control of the White House.

“It’s setting a precedent,” another voter said. “Reproductive rights, women's rights, basic human rights… This is my life, my kids, my grandkids, my great-grandkids,” she told MEE.

Very few here seemed clued-in enough to what the Democrats, under the current administration, have carried out and supported in the Middle East.  

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