Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud revealed that he would not be “endorsing any single candidate” in the upcoming election, and encouraged people to vote their “moral conscience.”
In an interview with Niall Stanage, a White House columnist for the Hill, Hammoud, who is Dearborn’s city Muslim and Arab American mayor, explained that he was not endorsing former President Donald Trump or Vice President Kamala Harris in the upcoming election, citing the “genocide in Gaza” the conflict in the Middle East that has “now touched Lebanon.”
Hammoud added that he had not “found any candidate,” especially the candidate associated with the Democratic Party, whom he has been affiliated with, who was “willing to depart” from President Joe Biden’s stance on the Israel and Hamas war.
“When you get to the top of the ticket, or when you arrive at the top of the ticket, what I advocate for, what I endorse is that you vote your moral conscience,” Hammoud explained. “And, for many — for each individual that’s going to mean something differently, but I’m leaving it to them. I am not endorsing any single candidate for president, as I have not found any candidate — especially the candidate with the party that I have affiliated myself with, who has been willing to depart from the current course that President Biden has taken us down on the genocide of Gaza and the broader conflict that has now touched Lebanon.”
“My wife’s cousin was just killed a few days ago as a paramedic in Lebanon,” Hammoud added. “Her grandparent’s house was just bombed, the house in which her father helped build. Our county commissioner just posted that the house in which he grew up in, and has memories in was just targeted and blown up. This is civilian infrastructure. This first Lebanese American that was slaughtered by the Israeli government was a Dearborn resident. Many of my friends and family have now lost family and loved ones.”
Hammoud’s non-endorsement of a candidate in the upcoming election comes as several polls have found that Trump is leading Harris with support from Arab-Americans.
An Arab News/YouGov poll found that Trump received 45 percent of support, while Harris received 43 percent of support.
Trump has also recently appeared at a press conference with Hamtramck Mayor Ameer Ghalib, who previously endorsed Trump as being the “right choice” for a candidate during a “critical time.”
Support for Trump among the Arab American and Muslim American communities has increased, especially in communities such as Dearborn and Hamtramck, as an increased amount of Arab Americans and Muslim Americans have been unhappy with how the current administration has handled the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.
