DETROIT — Republican Donald Trump won the presidential vote in the cities of Dearborn and Dearborn Heights in Tuesday's election on his way to winning Michigan after the former president courted voters in Metro Detroit's traditionally Democratic Arab American and Muslim communities.

Those community members who did not support Trump linked the former president's reelection to a "failure of Democratic leadership" that stopped listening to the community's concerns that go beyond the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.

Trump won Dearborn, the nation’s largest Arab-majority city, 42.5%-36% over Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris, or a margin of more than 6 percentage points. Green Party nominee Jill Stein, who selected a Muslim American running mate, pulled over 18% of the vote in Dearborn, according to the city's unofficial results.

Trump also secured 44% of the vote to Harris' 38% in Dearborn Heights, according to the city's unofficial results, where Mayor Bill Bazzi last month endorsed the Republican. Bazzi spoke at Trump campaign rallies across the state in the final days of the election. Stein pulled about 15% in Dearborn Heights.

Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud, a Democrat who refused to meet with Trump but did not endorse Harris, offered his election analysis on the X social media platform.

"Votes are never promised to any party or candidate, especially from a community directly impacted by a genocide," Hammoud said about the Israel-Hamas war. "More importantly, civic engagement does not start and end at the voting booth — the real work is everyday before and after an election. My community and I will continue to hold the White House accountable to policies that will save and improve lives — now and into the future."

There were no results available for Hamtramck, a predominantly Muslim American city where Mayor Amer Ghalib endorsed Trump, but some City Council officials endorsed Harris.

Harris' loss in the Arab and Muslim community is not all her fault, said Abbas Alawieh, co-founder of the national Uncommitted Movement, which refused support to President Joe Biden in state presidential primaries earlier this year as a way of sending a message that the community rejected his support of Israel in the Gaza war.

Democratic Party leaders have failed the community, Alawieh said, by not been showing up in the community for a long time. This disconnect, he said, started even before October 2023, when Hamas launched a surprise attack on Israel that killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took another 250 hostages. Since then, more than 43,000 people have been killed in Gaza, according to the hat Hamas-controlled Health Ministry.

"That vacancy has opened space for Donald Trump to come and fill it with lies such as him being the pro-peace candidate," Alawieh said at a Dearborn coffee shop where he spoke with the press. "It's not just on Vice President Harris. This is a failure of Democratic leadership to effectively engage with Arab and Muslim communities."

On the campaign trail, Trump noted there were no major wars when he was president and vowed that he could restore peace if elected again. Trump also has been a staunch supporter of Israel, a stance he didn't emphasize in the waning days of the campaign.

Many people voted for Trump in Metro Detroit's Arab and Muslim community because the Democratic Party failed and Trump filled the minds of those grieving over the devastation and loss in Gaza "with lies of who he is," Alawieh said.

"In Vice President Harris' failure to present herself as the pro-peace candidate, Donald Trump stepped in and tried to do that and did so effectively," Alawieh said. "He told people, 'I'm the person who will stop the wars.' I don't believe that he is. But a lot of people believe him when he says that because of failed Democratic leadership."

Lexis Zeidan, another co-founder of the Uncommitted Movement, noted that local voters reelected Democratic U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib of Detroit, the only Palestinian American in Congress, while putting Trump back in office. Tlaib also did not endorse Harris for president and has pointedly criticized the Biden administration.

"What that means is that there are not right-wing, fascist voters here," Zeidan said. "There are a number of voters who felt betrayed and ignored by this administration. And there was a price to pay for that."

Going forward, the Uncommitted Movement plans to work with Biden officials to change their policy that sends weapons to the Israeli government that are being used to kill civilians many in the local Arab and Muslim community are connected to so it won't be his legacy, Alawieh said.

Israeli officials have said they try to take measures to limit civilian casualties but that Hamas embeds itself within civilian populations.

Emails, mailers, billboards

In the final days of the campaign, residents in Metro Detroit's Arab and Muslim communities reported receiving a tsunami of texts, mailers, emails, TV and billboard ads. Trump campaigned in Dearborn last week, declaring that peace in the Middle East can and should be achieved.

There are people in the U.S. and the Middle East "that aren't doing their job," Trump said during a stop at the Great Commoner, a cafe on Michigan Avenue in west Dearborn.

"You’re going to have peace in the Middle East," he said at another point. "And they should have in the Middle East, but not with the clowns you have in the Middle East."

The former president didn’t respond to a question on whether he thought what was happening in Gaza was a genocide — a claim by Palestinian Americans and others that is rejected by many Jewish Americans and Israeli officials.

Harris also made comments about the war in Michigan while at Michigan State University on Sunday, saying: “On the subject of Gaza, I have been very clear: The level of death of innocent Palestinians is unconscionable.”

“We need to end the war, and we need to get the hostages out, and as President of the United States, I will do everything in my power to achieve that end and a two-state solution where Palestinians will have the right to self-determination and security and stability in the region," the vice president said.

Trump also visited Hamtramck last month and campaigned with the city's mayor, Ghalib, who is Muslim. Trump at that time told reporters that Biden was trying to hold back Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “He probably should be doing the opposite,” Trump said.

For months, Arab American voters have complained that Biden and Harris hadn't done enough to end the war in the Middle East or suspend arms shipments to Israel. Some said those calls went unheard.

That's why Dearborn Heights resident Connie Kazan said she didn't want to hear Harris blaming Arab and Muslim voters for her defeat.

"You lost because you lost," Kazan said. "The uncommitted vote showed both parties that they meant business. (We) are going on 390 days of a genocide in Palestine ... Even if I wasn't an Arab or a Muslim, as a human being, you should open up your eyes and say, 'It's enough.'"

Uncommitted movement

In the February Democratic primary in Michigan, 101,623 ballots were cast for "uncommitted" in protest of Biden’s support of Israel in the ongoing conflict, many of them cast in Muslim-heavy cities including Dearborn, Dearborn Heights and Hamtramck.

Biden ended his bid for reelection on July 21, leading to Democrats nominating Vice President Kamala Harris for president, but Uncommitted leaders from Michigan refused to endorse Harris this fall. They pledged to mobilize their supporters against Trump, whose return to the White House they said would quash pro-Palestinian voices and "accelerate" killings in Gaza.

U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib, the only Palestinian American member of Congress, last week labeled Trump "a proud Islamophobe" and "serial liar who doesn't stand for peace." Tlaib, a fierce critic of Israel, hasn't endorsed Harris this fall. Her district includes both Dearborn and Dearborn Heights.

"The reality is that the Biden admin’s unconditional support for genocide is what got us here," Tlaib wrote in a social media post. "This should be a wake-up call for those who continue to support genocide. This election didn't have to be close."

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, on Wednesday called on Democrats to learn lessons from Harris' loss of support among Muslims and other voters opposed to the Gaza war. The council urged Trump to "prioritize fulfilling his campaign pledge to pursue peace abroad, including an end to Israel’s war on Gaza."

"The vice president's failure to lay out any plan to end that genocide, such as suspending weapons to Israel, combined with her refusal to let any Palestinian-American speak at the DNC and her embrace of the war criminal enthusiast Liz Cheney, made matters worse," CAIR National Executive Director Nihad Awad said in a statement.

"Rather than listening to the clear majority of American who support both a cease-fire and a suspension of weapons to Israel, Vice President Harris only struck a slightly more sympathetic tone toward Palestinians while sticking with the substance of President Biden's disastrous stance," Awad said. "This led to an unprecedented shift of support from Muslim, Arab, and other communities who traditionally vote for Democratic presidents."

In the closely watched Senate race, Democratic U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin of Holly won Dearborn over Republican Mike Rogers by a margin of 42.5% to 36%, and Dearborn Heights by a margin of 42% to 41%, according to unofficial returns.

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(Staff writer Craig Mauger contributed.)

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