US: Ali, from Whitefish Bay, north of Milwaukee, isn’t worried about domestic issues

US: The decision isn’t quite apparent for Abdulhamid Ali and a large number of Muslim American voters in Wisconsin, a battleground state.

Ali, from Whitefish Bay, north of Milwaukee, is largely concerned with foreign matters. With only two months to go before one of the most important presidential elections in American history, he hopes to persuade Vice President Kamala Harris to support the establishment of an independent Palestinian state and put an end to Israel’s conflict with Hamas in Gaza.

In Wisconsin, where the outcome was determined by a mere 20,000 votes in 2020, every vote counts. Even though Ali supported President Joe Biden against former President Donald Trump four years ago, Harris cannot be certain that she will have his vote. There are around 40,000 Muslim voters in Wisconsin. Harris is scheduled to conduct a protest in Madison, a city with a sizable Muslim community, late on Friday.

“I have some doubts,” the 65-year-old Ali said to the media, expressing his frustration over the fighting in the Gaza Strip. According to Hamas officials, since the militant group attacked Israel on October 7 of last year, killing about 1,200 Israelis and kidnapping 250 more, an Israeli offensive has killed over 41,000 Palestinians.

He said, “I want to see a concrete plan.” “For her to say, ‘I will create a free and democratic Palestinian state, and these are the steps we will take.'”

Owner of a civil engineering company, Ali says he will cast ballots in municipal and state elections but not for president if that plan isn’t evident.

According to a Marquette Law School Poll study, Harris leads Trump 52 percent to 48 percent among all registered voters in the Badger State.

However, a late-August study found that Harris is behind Green Party candidate Jill Stein among Wisconsin’s Muslim voters. Stein has made it clear that she wants to put a stop to what she refers to as the “genocidal war” in Gaza. With 44 percent of the vote, Stein fared better than Harris (39%) and Trump (just 8%) combined. The percentage of Muslims in the country who favor Harris and Stein is almost equal—around 29% each.

Four years ago, the majority of Muslims in the country supported Joe Biden, with 86 percent voting for the president and just 6 percent voting for Donald Trump. Another 8% declined to vote or selected a different candidate, according to the study.

This time, Muslim voters like Farhat Khan, a Wisconsin physician who supported Biden in 2020 but isn’t running for office again in November, have been drawn to the Green Party contender because of his commitment to Gaza.

Khan, a 1991 immigrant from Pakistan, said, “We’ll vote for the Green Party because we want to vote and get counted.” “We know Jill Stein is not going to make it to the White House, but if she gets 20,000 or 30,000 votes in Wisconsin and Democrats lose, this will be a lesson for them to learn that next time they can’t ignore this vibrant and growing community.”

Maqsood Khan, a Franklin, Wisconsin gastroenterologist and the head of the Wisconsin Muslim Civic Alliance, too supported Biden in 2020. However, the father of five chastised Harris for her views on the Middle East and for not opposing Islamophobia with enough vigor.

“Too many innocent lives have been lost,” he said. “Every life matters, regardless of religion—Jew or Muslim alike. I’m a doctor, and I value life. Diplomacy and respect for human life are the only ways I can go ahead,” he said.

When asked for a reaction to concerns expressed by Muslim voters, Morgan Finkelstein, the national security spokesperson for the Harris campaign, pointed media attention to the vice president’s remarks made at a debate versus Trump on September 10.

After the October 7 assaults, Harris claimed that Israel had the right to defend itself, but that “far too many innocent Palestinians have been killed.”

“We know that this war has to end,” she said, promising to keep negotiating a cease-fire “around the clock” and “chart a course” for a two-state solution.

At least as a substitute for Trump, other Muslims in Wisconsin like Harris. In 2016, Madison-based entrepreneur and activist Masood Akhtar founded We Are Many-United Against Hate in response to then-President-elect Trump’s declaration that he would back the creation of a Muslim registry.

“First and foremost, we must protect democracy by eliminating Donald Trump,” the Muslim activist of Indian descent said to the media. “Step two: be at the table with decision-makers at the White House after the election so that we are not on the table, particularly with focus on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”

Akhtar intends to bring a group of Jewish and Muslim voters to the White House in order to draft proposals for Middle East peace if Harris unseats Trump.

The biggest Islamic group in Wisconsin, the Islamic Society of Milwaukee, according to executive director Othman Atta, says many Muslim voters in the area are “very upset” by the continued Israeli bombardment in Gaza, which has left them undecided of whom to support for president.

He said that this was driving some Muslim voters to support Stein.
Atta said, “They know she’s not going to win.” However, someone says, ‘Hey, let’s have a protest vote.'” People are saying, “I’m tired of voting for the lesser of two evils,” in this election.

Although the Muslim population in Wisconsin may have shifted to the Democratic side in response to the Gaza War, there is little evidence that considerations about Israel would influence the Jewish vote, even if Trump has said that Israel may vanish if Harris is elected.

Polls show that Harris is much preferred by Jewish voters across over Trump. According to a recent study conducted by the Jewish Democratic Council of America, 72% of respondents said they intended to vote for the Democratic contender, as opposed to 25% for the former president. That is almost identical from 2020, when, according to Pew Research Center statistics, 27% of Jewish Americans backed Trump and 70% of them voted for Biden.

According to a Jewish Electorate Institute survey conducted from August 27 to September 1, Harris’s 47-point advantage against Trump among Jewish voters surpasses the 41-point advantage Biden had in April before he withdrew from the race and gave the Democratic nomination to her.

Some Wisconsin voters, who number about 42,000 and are eligible to vote Jewish, voiced reservations about how Harris would handle the Israel-Hamas conflict, but they also gave other reasons to vote for the vice president instead of Trump.

Marcy Huffaker, 55, of Baraboo, Wisconsin, told Media, “I think that Donald Trump divides us as a country for personal gains by using fear and lies.” “Vice President Kamala Harris will work with other legislators and representatives to find ways to make all our lives better.”

Huffaker, 55, agreed with Harris’ positions on immigration, reproductive rights, and the conflict between Israel and Hamas.

“I think Israel has gone too far, but it still has the right to defend itself. Furthermore, I think that Palestinians need to have self-governance, equality, and access to civil and human rights,” she said.

Some, such as 65-year-old Oxford, Wisconsin resident Jeff Spitzer-Resnick, also mentioned Harris’s Middle East policies as a plus, although not the main priority: striking a balance between defending Israel and upholding Palestinian rights to self-determination.

“I have grave concerns about whether she will actually have the guts to cut off military aid to Israel,” he said. “I think it’s open to question; no president has yet to be willing to do that.”

Following the October terror incident by Hamas, the “equation changed” for the majority of Wisconsin’s Jewish voters, according to Brandon Maly, the head of the Republican Party of Dane County.

“What I hear over and over again is initially Joe Biden’s response was welcomed by moderate Jews and then he started to get weaker and weaker on Israel,” Maly, 24, told the media. “And now that Harris is the candidate and she’s said she’d be open to an arms embargo and wants a two-state solution, she’s taken up some very unpopular stances on the Jewish community.”

The stakes, in the opinion of Jewish Maly, could not be greater.
“A lot of people like myself feel like it’s existential,” he said. “Israel may not survive weak American leadership and American leadership that isn’t crystal clear in its support of Israel.”

Karoline Leavitt, the press secretary for the Trump campaign, said that Harris has “zero foreign policy experience” other than endorsing Biden’s agenda, which has angered enemies abroad, sparked the conflict in Ukraine, and allowed terrorists supported by Iran to strike Israel.

“Kamala Harris is dangerously liberal and there is zero doubt that America will be a more dangerous place if she was our commander in chief,” she said.

Still, a number of Jewish voters are coming from the same angle as many Muslims. Rachel Ida Buff, co-chair of the Wisconsin Coalition for Justice in Palestine, is one of the candidates who is debating whether to support Harris in November. She still hasn’t decided whether to support Harris.

According to Buff, “We need the genocide to stop immediately,” the media said. “Vice President Harris has been saying some positive things, but we have not seen action – and that is devastating.”