DEARBORN, Michigan — In this majority Arab American city, “America First” remains a powerful message among many voters who, frustrated by U.S. support for Israel, were crucial to delivering the swing state to Donald Trump in 2024.
Now their votes could sway the results of a toss-up Senate race pitting Democrat Abdul El-Sayed against Republican former congressman Mike Rogers.
Interviews with about a dozen Dearborn residents show how some Arab Americans think El-Sayed, a fierce critic of Trump and the Israeli government, is the candidate who most embodies “America First.”
Many think the Democrat will follow through on a promise the president broke: End America’s involvement in wars abroad and focus on improving the economy at home.
El-Sayed has embraced the “America First” label and made appeals to Trump voters, including in a campaign ad that aired exclusively on the conservative Fox News and Newsmax networks. It featured clips of conservative news hosts and commentators, including Tucker Carlson and Jesse Watters, praising the Democratic candidate.
A recent Washington Post-Schar School nationwide pollof Arab Americans found that 58 percent support Democrats for Congress after evenly splitting in the 2024 presidential race. Two-thirds of Arab Americans who voted for Trump still approve of his overall performance, but fifty-four disapprove 54 percent disapprove of his handling of Israel’s war in Gaza.
The Post spoke to Arab Americans around Dearborn who voted for Trump in 2024 to learn why they turned away from the president and embraced El-Sayed, a son of Egyptian immigrants. Here are three of their stories.
Faye Nemer, 40
“I don’t regret the fact I voted for Trump, but it weighs on my conscience that he’s not fulfilling his promises.”
Local business leader Faye Nemer, 40, agreed to co-host Trump’s presidential campaign stop in Dearborn for two reasons. His conservative economic vision was in line with her own. And he had penned an open letter to Lebanese Americans like her, committing to “fix the problems caused by Kamala Harris and Joe Biden and stop the suffering and destruction in Lebanon.”
Nemer had hoped that Harris would agree to an immediate ceasefire in the region, representing a break from the Biden administration’s approach. But, she said Harris campaign advisers dismissed her concerns about Israeli strikes on Southern Lebanon.
“It was basically a slap in the face,” Nemer said. She said her extended family remains displaced by the 2024 violence. So she embraced Trump.
But, Trump did not uphold his promise to the Lebanese American community, she said.
“What has he done in the last two years? The Palestinian situation has not been resolved,” Nemer said. “The situation in Lebanon continues to plague us.”
However, she stands by her vote, which she thinks sent a message to the Democratic Party.
“The Democratic Party needed an awakening,” Nemer said. “If Harris had prevailed, they would have thought that undermining and dismissing the Arab-American voting bloc was a good strategy.”
She does not support the Trump-endorsed Rogers and feels best represented by conservatives who have broken from the MAGA movement and have become critical of Trump’s foreign policy, including Carlson and former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene. In their absence, Nemer said El-Sayed, who has long opposed Israel’s war in Gaza, most represents the promise of “America First.”
Walid Fidama, 62
“His message was ‘Make America Great Again’. It’s not great.”
Walid Fidama grew disillusioned with Kamala Harris in 2024.
The longtime Democrat who emigrated from Yemen in 1989 felt Harris’s presidential campaign had “closed communications” with Arab Americans after Israel’s war in Gaza. Organizers at the Democratic National Convention denied requests for a speaker to address conditions in Gaza during the 2024 convention. And he noticed that Harris did not publicly campaign in Dearborn.
Fidama’s concern, as a Yemeni, was ending a civil war in Yemen. But as an American, he was concerned about rising inflation. He said Trump assured him both would be “fixed.”
He even met Trump backstage during a campaign rally in nearby Novi, through Massad Boulos, a Lebanese American businessman who led much of Trump’s Arab American outreach and is Tiffany Trump’s father-in-law.
Now, Fidama said he feels let down by the president and Republicans on foreign and domestic fronts.
The war in Yemen still rages. The cost of filling up his car has doubled. He’s shocked by the price of his groceries every time he goes to the store.
“His message was ‘Make America Great Again.’ It’s not great,” Fidama said. “I don’t see peace anywhere. He made it worse. We have started a war. For why?”
Fidama doesn’t regret his decision in 2024. He thinks Democratic leadership was out of touch during the campaign and that many other Democrats would agree.
But, he said he thinks El Sayed’s Democratic campaign platform summed up in the slogan — “Money out of politics. Money in your pocket. Medicare for All” — will help the people of Michigan.
“I know he will be just one vote,” Fidama said. “But the way he talks, at least, we will have someone that feels the people.”
Mustapha El-Jaroudi, 27
“Trump’s a con artist.”
Two-time Trump voter Mustapha El-Jaroudi said he thinks the meaning of “America First” is clear: “Keeping taxpayer money in the U.S. instead of overseas.”
And it was the most important factor in deciding his vote for senator, he said.
“Mike Rogers will put Israel first,” El-Jaroudi said of the pro-Israel Republican.
El-Jaroudi, who grew up in Dearborn, said that he no longer feels the president or his party put America first because of their continued support for American intervention in the Middle East.
“Trump said no new wars. He said he’d make the financial situation better. He said he would stop immigration,” El-Jaroudi said. “But everything I listed, he did the opposite.”
In 2016, El-Jaroudi was unperturbed that Trump proposed a “Muslim ban.” El-Jaroudi, whose family emigrated from Lebanon in 1908, said he felt it would not affect Americans like him and supported an end to “mass migration,” which strained American resources, he added.
He disapproved of how much money the Biden administration had given to Israel during the war in Gaza, and said he thought Trump would put an end to it. Instead, military aid to Israel accelerated under Trump.
Although El-Jaroudi stands by his Trump vote, today, he said Trump “accepts money from everybody” and that it is influencing Trump’s decision-making.
In contrast, he likes that El-Sayed has repeatedly criticized Democrats and Republicans alike who welcome support or take donations from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the pro-Israel lobbying group.
“I might not agree with everything El-Sayed says, but at least he’s not being bribed,” El-Jaroudi said.
The post Why these Arab Americans who voted for Trump now back Abdul El-Sayed appeared first on Washington Post.
