The countdown has begun for the US midterm elections, scheduled for Nov 3. Both Republicans and Democrats are on the campaign trail in an election that US President Donald Trump has said would be a referendum on his administration. The role of Muslim voters in the US, who have moved from Republican roots to a Democratic realignment, is drawing attention. With Trump’s anti-Muslim rhetoric, their role in complicating the numbers game for Republicans becomes even more interesting.
From past to present
Until the 2000s, major Muslim organisations endorsed George W. Bush. Voters aligned with the GOP’s conservative social values and fiscal policies. Crucially, Bush campaigned on ending the use of “secret evidence”, which the community viewed as a tool for ethnic and racial profiling.
Things changed after the 9/11 attacks, which fundamentally transformed the community’s domestic reality. The introduction of the Patriot Act, surveillance programmes and widespread racial profiling pushed many Muslim voters towards the Democratic Party.
Since then, Muslim communities have felt “institutional exclusion” in the US when it came to Republicans. Muslim voters voted overwhelmingly for Joe Biden in 2020 (around 65 to 70 per cent) to counter explicit xenophobia, as per reports. However, disillusionment over the Biden administration’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war contributed to a sharp decline in support for the Democratic ticket.
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Under Donald Trump, the travel ban on several Muslim-majority nations has reinforced that sense of institutional exclusion. Concerns over domestic profiling, discrimination and anti-Muslim rhetoric have only increased. Domestic civil liberties had long kept many Muslim voters within the Democratic coalition, but the Palestinian cause remained a major source of friction over US foreign policy in West Asia. The Trump administration has been a strong ally of Israel and is seen to have backed the Gaza war, despite Trump’s attempt to be a peacemaker with his “Board of Peace”.
Third-party shift and the ‘uncommitted’ movement
A significant section of the Muslim electorate has also turned to third-party candidates. A CAIR national exit poll showed Jill Stein receiving 53 per cent of the Muslim vote, followed by Donald Trump at 21 per cent and Kamala Harris at 20 per cent. In critical swing states like Michigan, the “uncommitted” movement used electoral leverage to protest US military aid to Israel.
The victory of New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani can be seen as an example of the community’s choices. Though a Democrat, Mamdani has projected himself more as a socialist, with Trump calling him a “radical”.
A growing political infrastructure
With 255 Muslims reportedly serving in public office across 26 states, Muslim Americans are building a stronger political presence at the local and state levels. The community enters the next political cycle less as a reliable partisan bloc and more as a highly mobilised constituency balancing two priorities: domestic civil liberties and representation at home, and US foreign policy abroad, particularly on Palestine.