Trump breaks GOP losing streak in nation’s largest majority-Arab city with a pivotal final week

DEARBORN, Mich. — Faced with two choices she didn’t like, Suehaila Amen chose neither. “But at the end of the day when you have two evils running, what are you left with?” As it became clear late Tuesday into early Wednesday that Trump would not only win the presidency but likely prevail in Dearborn, the mood in metro Detroit’s Arab American communities was described by Dearborn City Council member Mustapha Hammoud as “somber.” And yet, he said, the result was “not surprising at all.” The shift in Dearborn — where Trump received nearly 18,000 votes compared with Harris’ 15,000 — marks a startling change from just four years ago when Joe Biden won in the city by a nearly 3-to-1 margin. A sign hangs in the window as volunteers meet in the campaign office for Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump, Monday, Nov. 4, 2024, in Hamtramck, Mich. Farah Khan, right, co-chair of the Abandon Harris Michigan campaign, tries to convince pedestrians to vote for Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein, Monday, Nov. 4, 2024, in Dearborn, Mich., the nation's largest Arab-majority city. Posters for Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris are seen outside a polling site as Dharmananda Mahaprabu Barua, right, a Buddhist monk and supporter of Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump, brings pizza to fellow Trump supporters campaigning, Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2024, in Hamtramck, Mich. On the Friday before the election, Trump visited The Great Commoner in Dearborn, a Lebanese-owned restaurant. Amen said that at polling places in Dearborn on Tuesday, “people were coming out and saying they were either voting third party or they were voting for Trump.” When she asked what led them to support Trump, “they said, at least he came out here and he talked to us, he acknowledged our community.” Although Arab American support didn’t propel him to the White House, Trump has made several promises that stuck in voters’ minds.