ATLANTA – With the death and destruction in Gaza on her mind, Soraya Burhani agonized over how to cast her vote for president.
“For us, Muslims, I see that there’s no good choice,” she said.
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With the U.S. handling of the Israel-Hamas war and conflict in the Middle East looming over the White House race, many American Muslim voters — most of whom backed President Joe Biden four years ago — have been wrestling with voting decisions.
After U.S. support for Israel left many of them feeling outraged and ignored, some seek a rebuff of the Democrats, including by favoring third-party options for president. Others grapple with how to express their anger through the ballot box amid warnings by some against another Donald Trump presidency.
For voters in swing states like Georgia, which Biden won in 2020 by fewer than 12,000 votes, the weight of such decisions can be amplified.
When it comes to voting, “the responses are all over the place and it’s not really aligned to one political party as it has in the past,” said Shafina Khabani, executive director at Georgia Muslim Voter Project. “Our communities, they’re sad; they’re mourning; they’re grieving; they’re angry and they’re confused."
Burhani, a Malaysian American, ended up voting for Kamala Harris — but it was a vote against Trump, rather than in support of the Democratic vice president, she said. “It was very difficult. It was very painful. It was very sad."
Burhani had become a spokesperson for a recently launched campaign, “No Peace No Peach,” that urged withholding votes from Harris unless demands, including halting arms shipments to Israel, were met. The group ultimately encouraged voters to “keep Palestine in mind at the ballot box, and vote with their conscience.”
Some others, she said, “can’t bring themselves" to vote for Harris and will instead back the Green Party’s Jill Stein.
They include Latifa Awad, who has relatives in Gaza and said she wants her vote for Stein to send a message: our voices matter.
“People are like, 'well, if you don’t vote for Kamala, then you’re voting for Trump,” she said. But, she added, “they both support Israel.”
Jahanzeb Jabbar said he voted for Trump in 2020 and supports him this year.
“If Trump was in office and this was going on, I would have not voted for him,” he said. “Had the Democrats come out with a very strong stance on a ceasefire and stopping military aid to Israel, my vote was ready to be had.”
He sees Trump as “the better option” for peace, saying the Republican nominee is a good deal maker. Jabbar rejects warnings by some that things would be worse under Trump, questioning how it can get worse after Israel’s military offensive in Gaza has already killed over 43,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health authorities.
The war was sparked by the Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel in which Hamas-led militants killed some 1,200 people and took about 250 hostages.
In 2020, among Muslim voters nationally, about two-thirds supported Biden and about one-third supported Trump, according to AP VoteCast. That Biden support has left many feeling betrayed or even guilty.
“They’re seeing these elected officials that they voted for essentially, to them, funding a war that’s killing their own family and friends,” Khabani said. At the same time, community members warn against another Trump presidency, she said, recalling Trump’s ban while in office that affected travelers from several Muslim-majority countries. Biden rescinded the ban.
Some Muslims, Khabani said, are also concerned about such issues as the maternal mortality rate in Georgia’s Black communities, health-care affordability and gun safety.
Many, she said, are unsure if they want to vote. She and others have urged them to not overlook down-ballot races.
Nationally, some religious leaders have backed various sides of the debate.
One letter signed by a group of imams and other leaders urged U.S. Muslims to reject what they said was a “false binary” and to make a statement by voting third party in the presidential election.
“We will not taint our hands by voting for or supporting an administration that has brought so much bloodshed upon our brothers and sisters,” it said, emphasizing that this was no endorsement of Trump, whom it also criticized.
A different group of imams said that the benefit of backing Harris “far outweighs the harms of the other options.”
“Knowingly enabling someone like Donald Trump to return to office, whether by voting directly for him or for a third-party candidate, is both a moral and a strategic failure,” that letter stated.
In swing state Michigan, Trump has secured a number of endorsements from Muslims, including two mayors, even as many other leaders r emained negative toward him.
Harris and Trump have jostled for an edge among Arab and Muslim American voters and Jewish voters, especially in tight races in Michigan and Pennsylvania. U.S. Muslims, who are racially and ethnically diverse, make up a tiny sliver of overall voters, but community activists hope that energizing more of them, especially in key swing states with notable Muslim populations, makes a difference in close races.
“If you don’t live in a swing state, I envy you,” said Georgia State Rep. Ruwa Romman, a Democrat of Palestinian descent. “For those of us in swing states ... it has been a suffocating and crushing responsibility.”
Romman’s name was among those proposed by “uncommitted” activists pushing for a Palestinian speaker on the Democratic National Convention’s stage. Denial of that request dismayed many of those wanting Harris to distinguish herself from Biden’s Gaza policy. Some had credited Harris with striking a more empathetic tone toward Palestinian suffering but said she failed to follow that with action.
Romman, had she given a speech, would have called for electing Harris and defeating Trump, while outlining demands, including for a cease-fire. She laments the rejection of the “symbolic gesture” of a speaker as a lost opportunity but says Trump would be “so much worse” for Palestinians. "I'm just frustrated because I’m sitting between two immovable entities, right? — the Harris campaign and the community,” she said. “Sometimes it feels like they’re actually moving further away from each other.”
She said, “If I believe there’s a chance to stop the genocide under Harris but no chance under Trump, don’t I have a moral obligation to get to that situation?”
An attendee at an Arab American convention in Michigan recently told Romman it was “disgusting” that she had been willing to take the DNC stage and offer an endorsement then without a policy shift by the administration.
Nasrina Bargzie, director of Muslim and Arab American outreach for Harris’ campaign, said in a statement that throughout her career, Harris “has been steadfast in her support of our country’s diverse Muslim community, including ensuring that they can live free from the hateful policies of the Trump administration.” She added that Harris “will continue working to bring the war in Gaza to an end in a way where Israel is secure, the hostages are released, the suffering in Gaza ends, and the Palestinian people can realize their right to dignity, security, freedom and self-determination.”
Trump campaign senior adviser Brian Hughes said the Harris-Biden administration’s “failed foreign policy has brought death, chaos, and war to the Middle East,” adding that only Trump “will restore peace and stability in the Middle East for all people and he will protect religious freedom for all Americans, as he did in his first term."
Trump has touted his support for Israel and as president declared Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
At Georgia’s Atlanta Masjid of Al-Islam, where the congregation is primarily African American, mosque-goer Sabir Muhammad said that “as Muslims, of course, we’re disheartened by the situation in Gaza and we can’t support the government being complicit.”
He said he felt he had little choice this election — Trump is not an option for him — and would probably vote for Harris, adding, later, that he voted but wanted to keep his choice private.
“We’re in a quandary," he had said.
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Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.