President-elect Donald Trump pulled off the seemingly impossible political feat of uniting Arabs, Muslims, and Jews in support of his campaign in the 2024 election.
Trump increased his share of the Jewish vote to roughly 32% nationwide — the highest since Ronald Reagan in 1980 — and broke through 40% in several states with large Jewish populations, reaching 46% in New York, exit polls said.
At the same time, Trump increased his support among Arab and Muslim voters, even winning the majority-Arab town of Dearborn, Michigan, after campaigning there in the run-up to Election Day.
Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods saw a shift toward the Republican Party — as did majority-Muslim neighborhoods in the Detroit metropolitan area, en route to Trump’s victory in the former “blue wall” midwestern state of Michigan.
The pairing of these two communities might have seemed unlikely. Many Jews are concerned about Israel’s security, and also worried about antisemitism — some of which comes from radical Islamic activists in the Muslim community.
Many Arab and Muslim voters are furious at U.S. support for Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon, and rejected President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris for not severing ties with Israel.
Given that Trump has been perhaps the most pro-Israel president in U.S. history, and had even advocated for a “Muslim ban” in 2015, he might seem like an unlikely choice, even as a protest vote, for Arab and Muslim voters.
But Trump wooed both communities by pointing to his track record of peace in the Middle East, and promising to end the ongoing wars. After all, if strong support for Israel discouraged terrorists from starting wars, even pro-Palestinian Arabs and Muslims could tolerate Trump’s approach, in theory. Harris also made the crucial mistake of campaigning with former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY), seen, like her father, as an enthusiastic supporter of wars in the Middle East.
Many Orthodox Jews, religious Muslims, and Christian Arabs were also encouraged by the Republican Party’s opposition to radical social policies, especially transgenderism. Trump attracted those voters as well.
The unique combination of constituencies in the Trump coalition could encourage hope for reconciliation in the Middle East as well, as the 45th — and now 47th — president promises to expand the Abraham Accords and bring an end to war.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of The Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days, available for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency, now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
