Only 20% of Muslim Americans Voted for Kamala Harris

Are Muslims abandoning the centre-Left? It certainly appears so.

British Muslims have long been a reliable pro-Labour voting bloc. In 2019, when the party was led by Jeremy Corbyn, around 80% voted for Labour. The figure was similar in 2017. At this year’s election, by contrast, only around 60% voted for Labour – a 20 percentage point drop. What’s more, Labour lost four seats to Muslim independent candidates, plus another to Corbyn – who now stands as an independent.

The reason for this exodus is simple: many Muslims were dissatisfied with Labour’s stance on the Israel-Palestine conflict. Research by the Economist shows that the percentage of Muslims intending to vote Labour fell sharply in the months following the October 7th attack, and only recovered slightly the following year. Meanwhile, the percentage of non-Muslims intending to vote Labour was unaffected.

Looking across constituencies, there is a strong negative association between the percentage of the population that is Muslim and the change in Labour’s vote share. In other words, Labour’s biggest losses were seen in seats with large Muslim populations.

With all that said, Labour still managed to retain around 60% of Muslim votes – which is actually very impressive when compared to the Democrats’ recent performance.

As in Britain, Muslim Americans have traditionally voted overwhelmingly for the centre-Left. In 2020, around 77% voted for Joe Biden, helping him to take the swing-state of Michigan (which has a sizeable Muslim population). This year, by contrast, only 20% voted for Kamala Harris – a staggering 57% drop.

Once again, the reason is simple: Muslims opposed the Democrats’ military and diplomatic support for Israel, which Harris refused to disavow. Of those who didn’t vote for Harris, the vast majority (53% of the total) cast their ballots for Jill Stein, leader of the Green Party and outspoken critic of U.S. support for Israel. Slightly more Muslims voted for Trump, the man who once implemented a ‘Muslim travel ban’, than voted for Harris.

It’s worth noting that Harris would still have lost the election even if she’d retained high levels of support from Muslims. However, a 57 percentage point shift away from her party is quite remarkable.

The next major Western country to hold an election will be Germany in 2025. Both the Social Democrats and the Greens are expected to do far worse than they did in the last election, which may in part be due to Muslim voters abandoning them over their support for Israel. (Germany is Israel’s second largest arms supplier, after the U.S.)

Centre-Left parties lost much of the support they once enjoyed in traditional working-class communities due to their stance on mass immigration. As a consequence, they have come to rely heavily on votes from ethnic minorities, especially Muslims. It is a kind of poetic justice that Muslim voters are now deserting them.