New Biden low: First time Arab Americans choose GOP over Democrats

Arab Americans have always had the Democrats’ back — but not anymore, thanks to President Joe Biden’s policies in the Middle East.

For the first time since the Arab American Institute started polling, Republicans are preferred more to Democrats.

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“This poll marks the first time in our 26 years of polling Arab American voters in which a majority did not claim to prefer the Democratic Party,” said the analysis of the poll conducted by John Zogby Strategies for the group headed by his brother, James Zogby.

“In 2008 and 2016, Democrats outnumbered Republicans by two-to-one. In this poll, 32% of Arab Americans identified as Republican as opposed to just 23% who identified as Democrats. Independents continued a steady growth in party identification and overtook Democrats for the first time in October 2023,” said the survey.

The poll, linked to the nearly month-old Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip, found a radical shift in the political leanings of Arab Americans away from Democrats, a potential fatal blow to Biden’s reelection bid that is already shaky because of concerns about the economy.

“Support for President Biden in the upcoming election has plummeted among Arab Americans voters, dropping from 59% to 17%, a 42% decrease from 2020. Biden’s approval rating has also dropped precipitously from 74% in 2020 to 29% in 2023, reflecting trends across the American public as a whole,” said the Institute.

The group said that the findings could hurt Democrats in Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, home to big populations of Arab Americans.

The survey preceded the weekend protests in several cities over Biden’s pro-Israel policies and refusal to call for a cease-fire in Gaza where Israeli forces have been preparing for a ground invasion to retaliate for the surprise Hamas attack inside Israel last month.

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It reinforces several other recent polls showing Biden losing to former President Donald Trump in 2024 in part because the president’s coalition of younger voters, minorities and suburbanites have lost faith in him.

Pollster John Zogby in the weekly Secrets report card on Biden graded the president with a D-minus, a very rare near failing grade. He cited his and other polling and wrote, “As I write this, over 9,000 Palestinians have been killed in the Israel-Hamas war, quadruple that number have been injured, and many more may never be counted. Let me not mince words: this is genocide and ethnic cleansing. Of course, Hamas started it all, but so too did a brutal occupation and a choking of the economy of the Gaza economy. If Israel has a ‘right’ to defend itself, when is enough too much?”

And, he added, “politically, he is on the path of losing support of younger voters, people of color, and moderate independents. Biden can gloat about another good economic week, but not so much if Americans are worried about WWIII.”