Michigan’s Muslim Voters May Block Jewish Gov. Josh Shapiro from Being Democrats’ VP Pick

Liberal journalists say the Muslim vote in Michigan is a wild card in a must-win swing state for Democrats — especially for possible vice-presidential contender Josh Shapiro, the popular Democratic governor of nearby Pennsylvania.

As a vice-presidential nominee, Shapiro “could help deliver the essential state of Pennsylvania, but his ardent support for Israel and criticism of pro-Gaza campus protests would reopen wounds in the Democratic Party that have lately started to heal,” said Michelle Goldberg, a columnist at the New York Times.

WATCH — Gottheimer: Hamas Did Ceasefire PR Stunt Because Campus Disorder “Emboldened” Them:

“Shapiro would be an excellent vice-presidential candidate,” added Pamela Paul, an independent-minded liberal at the New York Times. “But given the unfortunate but real antisemitism on the left right now …. this may not be the right time for a Jewish Democratic presidential candidate.”

“He’s Jewish — there could be some risk in putting him on the ticket,” John King told a CNN audience.

Democrats need to win Michigan, but former President Donald Trump is already at 49 percent support, according to a July 13 poll by the Detroit Free Press. The newspaper reported:

[Bernie] Porn, who has been doing polling in Michigan for decades, said he couldn’t remember a survey he’d done showing a Republican presidential candidate in such a strong position in the state since then-Vice President George H.W. Bush ran successfully for president in 1988.

Muslim immigrants are a tiny share of the nation’s electorate. But the demographic includes roughly 200,000 voters in Michigan’s 2020 electorate of 5.6 million.

The Muslim voters are being pushed together by competing Muslim political leaders who want to create a voting bloc that can extract political concessions in exchange for the state’s 15 electoral votes.

That goal of political mobilization is aided by normal Muslim sympathy for fellow Muslims in the Gaza Strip war.

WATCH — PA Gov. Shapiro: Lefties Opposed to Israel’s Existence Must See “Binary” Between Trump, Biden, Will “Come Back” to Biden:

Israel’s forces have been isolating and killing the Islamic Hamas terror group since October 7 when it emerged from Gaza to murder more than 1,000 Jewish men, women, and children. Hamas is protecting itself by first hiding behind civilians, and then using the resulting civilian casualties to spur anti-Israel protests by Muslim immigrants in Europe and the United States.

The pending defeat of Hamas in Gaza is not merely a military and political loss for Hamas. It also damages the political clout of the many Muslim activists in the West who grow their political groups by appealing to Islamic solidarity that is garishly contaminated by the antisemitic triumphalism that is pushed by classical texts, preachers, activists, and K-12 teachers.

None of the Muslim groups, or their supporters, dare condemn Islamic Hamas for starting the war that has flattened much of Gaza.

Instead, media reports show that many imported Muslims blame President Joe Biden for the pending defeat of Islamic Hamas. “No one will be voting for Biden that I know of,” Wissam Charafeddin told the New York Times in early July. “It would be an insult to ask.”

In February, the Muslim-dominated “Uncommitted” bloc in the Michigan Democratic Party’s nomination race withheld 100,000 voters from Biden, according to a report by Voice of America on March 10:

The “uncommitted” opposition may quickly transfer to Harris, who is offering to continue the claimed success of Biden’s four years.

WATCH — Biden Campaign: Uncommitted Voters Influencing Biden on Israel-Hamas Conflict — He’s Pushed Israel:

That would be a big problem for Democrats, who won the state by 120,000 votes in 2020 in an electorate of 5.6 million. A political split would also be a big opportunity for Donald Trump, who won the state by 10,000 votes in 2016.

“There is not an automatic endorsement by the community of Harris just because Biden stepped down,” Muslim activist Samraa Luqman told WFIN in a July 23 report:

She was part of the Biden administration, so she’s going to be associated with all of his policies and all of his rhetoric. She might come with a $100 million war chest, but she comes with his baggage as well … You’re hearing a lot of people who are so upset and so burned by Biden, that there is a rejection of the Democratic Party altogether, who are still saying, even if it were Harris, we will not vote for the Democratic nominee.

Concerning the war, Abed Ayoub, the executive director of an Arab political group, asked, “How different is Harris going to be on that?” “What can she bring to the table that’s different?”

The Muslim anger toward Biden may also jump from Biden to Shapiro if Harris picks him as her vice president.

Since October, Shapiro has denounced antisemitic attacks in the United States and supported Israel’s counter-offensive. Haaretz reported on July 22:

“What they did was blatant antisemitism,” he said. “They protested in restaurants, simply because it’s owned by a Jewish person. That is the kind of antisemitic tropes that we saw in 1930s Germany.”He has also bucked growing Democratic criticism of Israel’s conduct in Gaza in recent months, insisting to the Jewish Democratic Council of America that “Israel not only has a right to defend itself, I think Israel has a responsibility to combat Hamas head-on and to defeat Hamas.”

In prior years, Shapiro has tried to win Muslim voters in Pennsylvania, according to a December 2022 article in Arab American News. “Josh was at the forefront of fighting against the Muslim ban [Trump’s 2017 curbs on Muslim migration], along with other Democrats,” claimed one Muslim political advocate.

The emotional wounds held by politicized Muslims will likely last throughout the 2024 election, especially once Israel extinguishes Hamas’s underground leadership.

“Middle East politics definitely play a role in the majority of Arab American and Muslim voters and how they make their final decisions when it comes to voting,” Amny Shuraydi, a lecturer at the University of Michigan-Dearborn told Voice of America in March.