Just How Much Does Gaza Matter to American Muslim Voters? | Blog

For over a year, American Muslims have witnessed scenes of carnage broadcast from Gaza on a near-daily basis. At the same time, they have observed scenes of incredible patience and steadfastness from the Palestinians. Bearing witness to such faith-based resilience, while enduring persistent mental anguish at the inability to stop the violence which caused it, cannot help but force a realignment of priorities. In turn, this has led to observed increases in American Muslim religiosity, as well as momentous changes in political attitudes and preferences.

This current moment is not the first time that American Muslims have shifted their policy focus. Although foreign affairs were of paramount concern for the community in the years after 9/11 during the George W. Bush administration, American Muslims have placed a greater emphasis on domestic policies in recent years, especially after Trump took office. By 2016, some polls found that the economy and civil rights at home had become the top concerns for American Muslim voters. 

As late as summer 2023, all indications suggested that domestic issues were likely going to remain the top priority for the Muslim community going into the 2024 election. Many of the headlines featuring American Muslims around that time highlighted scenes of protest, much as they do today, but the contexts were dramatically different. As the 2023-2024 school year was set to begin, Muslim parents across the country, from Maryland to Minnesota to Michigan, voiced their objection to LGBTQ curricular content that they deemed inappropriate for their children.

Had the centering of LGBTQ issues that spotlighted Muslims’ socially conservative beliefs continued, it would have likely resulted in the largest vote share for the Republican presidential candidate from the American Muslim community since the 2000 election. Already in 2020, around 30% of Muslims cast a ballot for Donald Trump, and there was every reason to believe that this tally would grow in line with prevailing trends among other minority groups.

Fast forward to 2024 and the genocide in Gaza has upended the expected political trajectory of American Muslims. This community now appears to prioritize opposition to funding Israeli war crimes over all other issues. The majority of American Muslims surveyed do not perceive either major political party candidate favorably and do not consider either the least bit sympathetic to the Palestinian cause.

In his June debate with Biden, Trump said, “Actually, Israel is the one (that wants to keep going), and you should let them go and let them finish the job. He (Biden) doesn’t want to do it. He’s become like a Palestinian but they don’t like him because he’s a very bad Palestinian. He’s a weak one.” Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential candidate, has similarly repeated AIPAC talking points. At the Democratic National Convention in August, she said, “Let me be clear, I will always stand up for Israel’s right to defend itself and I will always ensure Israel has the ability to defend itself.” Thus, despite American  Muslims’ support for socially conservative initiatives at home, polling data suggests that they do not plan to vote for Donald Trump this year to the same degree as in 2020, let alone the possibility of exceeding it. Similarly, support for the Democratic candidate is dramatically down relative to prior years.

That the genocide in Gaza matters a great deal for American Muslim voters is a clear given. Just how much it matters—and, in particular, how much it matters relative to other issues—is less clear based on public opinion polls to date. The Institute for Social Policy and Understanding (ISPU) published survey findings at the start of the year showing that nearly two-thirds of American Muslims would increase support for a candidate that called for a ceasefire in Gaza. This figure was even higher in a more recent ISPU study focused on swing states, which also reported that the “War in Gaza” was the top issue for Muslim voters this November. 

To better understand where Palestine fits into American Muslim priorities, we polled American Muslims on their policy priorities as part of the recently-fielded 2024 edition of the Muslim American Attitudes Survey (MAAS). Specifically, we asked respondents, “How important are the following political issues to you personally?”  Here was the randomized list of items provided:

Respondents were able to indicate whether they felt an issue was “not at all important,” “slightly important,” “somewhat important,” or “very important.” Figure 1 displays the resulting issue priorities gleaned from this question. Ordered by the percentage of Muslims that felt the issue was “very important,” foreign policy within the Middle East (90%) takes the top spot. However, the second place slot—and its near parity with the number one issue—was somewhat unexpected. A large majority of American Muslims (79%) place great emphasis on healthcare access, a topic rarely discussed in our communities. Around half the sample regarded foreign policy outside the Middle East, immigration policy, and climate change policy as very important (58%, 53%, and 50%, respectively), while around one-third felt that way about abortion legislation (31%), with the lowest percentage of respondents (23%) prioritizing LGBTQ legislation.

While the rank order of issues offers an important perspective, the discourse in the lead-up to the election has not only centered on whether Muslim voters would prioritize Gaza, but also whether they would do so to the extent that it effectively becomes the only issue driving their decision in November. Figure 2 offers some insight into this matter.

For respondents who stated that a given issue from the list above was “very important” to them, a follow-up question asked them whether any of those issues were “SO important that a candidate MUST hold the same position as you or else you WILL NOT vote for them?” Generally, between 35-50% of respondents regarded issues that were highly important to them as non-negotiable. The one clear exception is foreign policy in the Middle East, with nearly 9-in-10 American Muslims (86.2%) saying that a candidate must hold the same position as them in order to earn their vote.

While these figures are informative, they still leave us with two core questions: 1) How would American Muslims choose between candidates when the crisis in Gaza is just one of several considerations?; and 2) To what extent do a candidate’s policy stances towards Israel factor into these voters’ calculations?

To partially plug these gaps in our knowledge, we embedded an experimental component within the MAAS. Specifically, we ran a conjoint experiment (n=1183), commonly used in marketing to assess the relative importance of a particular component (say, price or some technical feature) for a consumer’s willingness to purchase an item. In this instance, we assessed the voters’ willingness to cast a ballot between two hypothetical congressional candidates while varying the following components:

Candidate race/ethnicity: White, Middle Eastern, Black

Candidate political party: Democrat, Republican

Candidate religion: Atheist, Christian, Jewish, Muslim

Policy: Ban LGBTQ material in K-12 education: Opposes ban, Supports ban

Policy: Level of climate action needed: No action, Moderate action, Aggressive action

Policy: US aid to Israel: Maintain aid, Condition aid, Freeze aid

Figure 3 is an example of how these factors were presented to the survey’s respondents:

The goal with this approach is to mimic the decisions that voters could potentially face and isolate the effect of any one trait or component in driving their ultimate choice. This experimental assessment also gets us closer to revealed preferences (what people would actually do in a real world scenario) rather than stated preferences (what people merely say they would do). Another notable advantage of conjoint analysis is that it allows researchers to test the impact of multiple variables by having each respondent make several choices between two options (in our case, each respondent chose between two candidates six times).

Figure 4 presents the results of the conjoint experiment and highlights one more benefit to this method: clear interpretability. The point estimates denote the change in probability of a given respondent choosing a candidate with that component (whether a personal trait or policy position) relative to a reference component (which are zeroed out in the plot for clarity). The reference for demographics is White for race, Democrat for political party, and Atheist for religion. The reference for policies is that the candidate opposes banning LGBTQ content in schools, takes no action regarding climate change, and maintains aid to Israel.  

Our first key finding is that demographic traits, by and large, do not significantly move the needle when it comes to American Muslim votes. Respondents were only slightly more likely to pick a candidate who was Middle Eastern (2.5%) or Black (3.7%) relative to one that was White. Similarly, while Atheists had a slight disadvantage relative to Christians (4.5%) and Jews (3.9%), it was only with Muslim candidates that respondents evidenced a meaningfully higher likelihood to choose them (13.5%), all else being equal. Surprisingly, this trend of near parity held even when it came to party affiliation. Republican candidates were only at a slight disadvantage (3.2%) relative to Democrats.

However, on the policy front, there was considerably more variation. For example, the issue of curricular content clearly still matters for Muslim voters. Respondents were 12% more likely to vote for someone who supports banning LGBTQ material in K-12 education relative to someone who opposes such a ban. The issue of climate change had a somewhat more muted, though still noticeable, impact on vote choice. Relative to a candidate that does not believe any action needs to be taken to address climate change, a candidate who believes that moderate action is required is 6.9% more likely to be chosen and one who advocates for aggressive action has a nearly 10% edge (9.4%, to be precise).

Then, there is the issue of aid to Israel. The results in Figure 4 offer the clearest indication that the genocide in Gaza is the primary consideration when American Muslims cast a ballot. But, just how much does this issue matter? A candidate who wishes to maintain the current aid regime suffers a severe penalty, all else being equal. Relative to someone who supports the status quo, American Muslim voters are 30% more likely to cast a ballot for candidates who wish to condition aid to Israel, while those pushing to freeze aid altogether are a whopping 55% more likely to earn the community’s vote.

In one respect, the evidence presented in this post confirms the obvious—Gaza matters a lot to American Muslims and will likely drive their vote choice to a considerable degree this November. What these data highlight is just how much foreign policy in the Middle East, especially Gaza, matters above and beyond all other issues. Moreover, given the magnitude of our results, coupled with the findings of our earlier survey highlighting voter intentions, it is clear that a candidate’s foreign policy will weigh heavily on the voting behavior of the American Muslim community—not just this cycle, but likely for the foreseeable future. When push comes to shove, American Muslims vote with the  ummah in mind.