Michigan’s Muslim Voters May Block Jewish Gov. Josh Shapiro from Being Democrats’ VP Pick

Liberal journalists say the Muslim vote in Michigan is a wild card in a must-win swing state for Democrats — especially for vice-presidential contender Josh Shapiro, the popular Democratic governor of nearby Pennsylvania.

As a vice-presidential nominee, Shapiro “could help deliver the essential state of Pennsylvania, but his ardent support for Israel and criticism of pro-Gaza campus protests would reopen wounds in the Democratic Party that have lately started to heal,” said Michelle Goldberg, a columnist at the New York Times.

“Shapiro would be an excellent vice-presidential candidate,” added Pamela Paul, an independent-minded liberal at the New York Times. “But given the unfortunate but real antisemitism on the left right now …. this may not be the right time for a Jewish Democratic presidential candidate.”

“He’s Jewish — there could be some risk in putting him on the ticket,” John King told a CNN audience.

Democrats need to win Michigan, but former President Donald Trump is already at 49 percent support, according to a July 13 poll by the Detroit Free Press. The newspaper reported:

[Bernie] Porn, who has been doing polling in Michigan for decades, said he couldn’t remember a survey he’d done showing a Republican presidential candidate in such a strong position in the state since then-Vice President George H.W. Bush ran successfully for president in 1988.

Muslim immigrants are a tiny share of the nation’s electorate. But the demographic includes roughly 200,000 voters in Michigan’s 2020 electorate of 5.6 million.

The Muslim voters are being pushed together by competing Muslim political leaders who want to create a voting bloc that can extract political concessions in exchange for the state’s 15 electoral votes.

That goal of political mobilization is aided by normal Muslim sympathy for fellow Muslims in the Gaza Strip war.

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Instead, media reports show that many imported Muslims blame President Joe Biden for the pending defeat of Islamic Hamas. “No one will be voting for Biden that I know of,” Wissam Charafeddin told the New York Times in early July. “It would be an insult to ask.”

In February, the Muslim-dominated “Uncommitted” bloc in the Michigan Democratic Party’s nomination race withheld 100,000 voters from Biden, according to a report by Voice of America on March 10:

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In prior years, Shapiro has tried to win Muslim voters in Pennsylvania, according to a December 2022 article in Arab American News. “Josh was at the forefront of fighting against the Muslim ban [Trump’s 2017 curbs on Muslim migration], along with other Democrats,” claimed one Muslim political advocate.

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