The Arab American Political Action Committee (AAPAC) will not be issuing an endorsement for president this election cycle — the first time in 20 years it has not backed the Democrat candidate.
Based in the swing state of Michigan, the political action committee said that neither former President Donald Trump nor Kamala Harris rose to their level of expectations. The group has endorsed a Democrat every election cycle since being founded 20 years ago.
“This year, we face a choice of two candidates who are harming our communities here and our families and friends in our homelands,” the Arab American Political Action Committee said in a statement Monday. “We simply cannot give our votes to either Democrat Kamala Harris or Republican Donald Trump, who blindly support the criminal Israeli government led by far right extremists, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.”
The organization further said that both candidates “have endorsed genocide in Gaza and war in Lebanon.”
AAPAC said it came to the decision after its members met on Sunday and “debated for a long time” before concluding that both Harris and Trump “compete to please and support the Israeli government,” rendering them both unpalatable.
“By not voting for either Donald Trump or Kamala Harris, we are not staying silent — to the contrary, we are making a powerful statement and sending a clear message: We refuse to endorse candidates who do not care about us or our concerns, continue to divide America, and are complicit in an active genocide,” the group said. “Our votes matter, and withholding them will show that we cannot be ignored or taken for granted.”
Taking it even further, the organization said it will not endorse the Democrat for Michigan’s Senate seat.
“We ask our community to not vote for either Democrat Elissa Slotkin or Republican Mike Rogers. Frankly, they are both warmongers and do not deserve your vote,” it said.
As Breitbart News reported last week, Kamala Harris also seems to be having trouble in Michigan where Arab-American voters have begun to sour on her candidacy due to the Biden administration’s support for Israel’s offensive in Gaza. The New York Times profiled the sudden split Arab and Muslim voters in Michigan have made with Kamala Harris — a voting bloc of 300,000 people in a swing state.
“Four years ago, President Biden won Michigan with strong backing from many of those Americans. But interviews this weekend with voters, activists and community leaders in the Detroit area suggested that support for the Democratic ticket has not merely eroded among Arab Americans and Muslims,” noted the Times. “In some neighborhoods, it has all but vanished.”