Let’s Talk About The Muslim Vote In Michigan
(ANALYSIS) One of the narratives that is forming in the media right now when it comes to religion and the 2024 presidential election is the Muslim vote, especially in the state of Michigan.
There are some prominent voices in the Islamic community who are upset about how President Biden has handled the conflict between Israel and Hamas since October. Many Muslims feel that Biden has been too friendly to the Israeli government.
Back in January, The Washington Post ran a story with the headline, “Michigan’s Arabs and Muslims push to defeat Biden in critical state”
NBC News published an article in March, “Michigan Arab and Muslim leaders fuming after second Biden visit this year with no meeting.”
Slate ran one with the ominous title, “The Storm Brewing in Michigan.”
And this seems to be carrying over to the Harris campaign, as The New York Times published an article on Aug. 8: “In Detroit, Harris Confronts Divisions Roiling Democrats Over Gaza War.”
All of these stories make the same general point — the Democrats’ posture on the Middle East could cost them a significant number of Muslim votes in the key battleground state of Michigan, and thus could cost Kamala Harris the White House.
Americans protest the so-called Muslim ban enacted by former President Trump. (Photo by Ted Eytan)
I am going to completely sidestep the whole discussion of the conflict in the Middle East in this post and just focus on a narrow question: How many Muslim votes are there in the state of Michigan, and could they actually cost the Democrats the state?
Really the only way to estimate such a thing is by using the 2020 Religion Census. It contacted every major religious group in the United States and asked for records related to number of congregations and number of members of that faith group. The data is aggregated all the way down to the county level.
Now, I must say that the census had a pretty hard time getting mosques to respond. According to this appendix, it sent questionnaires to 2,948 mosques, and just 164 responded, or 5.5%. The census did follow up with a phone survey that yielded another 470 responses, though.
But let’s be clear — this data is not perfect. And let me also be direct about this point: There’s no way to do this work in a manner that could get an accurate count. It’s methodologically impossible. This is as best as we can do.
Ryan Burge is an assistant professor of political science at Eastern Illinois University, a pastor in the American Baptist Church and the co-founder and frequent contributor to Religion in Public, a forum for scholars of religion and politics to make their work accessible to a more general audience. His research focuses on the intersection of religiosity and political behavior, especially in the U.S. Follow him on X at @ryanburge.