Some Lebanese Americans in the swing state of Michigan have already voted in protest against Vice President Kamala Harris.
Israel’s invasion of Lebanon is already costing Vice President Kamala Harris at the ballot box.
Majed Moughni, a Lebanese American attorney in Dearborn, Michigan, said he cast a “protest vote” via absentee ballot on Monday, hours before Israeli ground forces entered southern Lebanon to conduct ground operations against Iran-backed Hezbollah militants.
Moughni, who was born in Beirut, said he has struggling to process the “real-time destruction” of Lebanon, where Israeli strikes have killed more than 1,000 people in the past two weeks, Lebanese health officials said. The former supporter of President Joe Biden accused Harris of failing to condemn the “indiscriminate attacks” and ignoring the will of more than 602,000 Lebanese Americans nationwide.
“To address this grievance, I will be voting against this administration that has supplied weapons of mass destruction to devastate the very country I was born in”, Moughni told Newsweek. “The conflict in the Middle East is the single most decisive issue this election year. No other issue matters.”
Moughni said he voted for third-party candidate Cornel West despite the long odds facing the pro-Palestinian, anti-war progressive polling at less than 1 percent nationally, according to RealClearPolitics data.
“My candidate will never win, but I know that my voice will be heard loud”, Moughni said.
More than 82,000 Lebanese Americans live in Michigan, second only to California. Michigan’s Wayne County, which includes Dearborn, also has the highest percentage of residents with Middle Eastern or North African ancestry (7.8 percent) among all U.S. counties, Census data shows. Biden won the state in 2020 by more than 154,000 votes, but Moughni said Harris hasn’t assuaged rampant fears among Lebanese Americans that his homeland will be decimated like the Gaza Strip, where more than 41,000 Palestinians have been killed since Israel’s offensive in response to the October 7 attack by Hamas.
“It’s the right vote because both [Harris and her presidential opponent, former President Donald Trump] depend on the Arab and Muslim vote, and if we show our presence, maybe by the next election they’ll have more interest in raising awareness to the causes that we’re fighting for”, Moughni said. “It’s going to make a difference; we’re going to be counted.”
Newsweek reached out to the Harris campaign for comment on Tuesday.
Other Lebanese Americans in Michigan told Newsweek they felt invisible to the Democratic Party amid Israeli’s escalating military campaign in Lebanon.
“We have reached a nadir in the support for the two-party system in this country and in this specific instance, the Democratic Party”, said Ali Dabaja, 43, of Dearborn Heights.
