Georgia's Muslim voters opposing Harris, Trump in election over both candidates' support for Israel
A growing group of Muslim voters in Georgia say they will not back either Vice President Kamala Harris or former President Donald Trump in next month's election because of both candidates' support of Israel amid the ongoing conflict in the Middle East.
Harris has said she supports Israel's right to defend itself and would not withhold weapons from the country, but has also called for a ceasefire in Gaza, while Trump said recently he is Israel's "protector" and reaffirmed his support for the Jewish state.
In battleground Georgia, where Trump narrowly lost in 2020 to President Joe Biden, the Peach State could help determine whether Harris or Trump wins the presidency.
The Muslim population in Georgia could also impact which candidate wins the state's 16 electoral votes. Muslim voters across the country are virtually tied between Harris and Trump, with Harris only securing a single-point advantage, according to a recent poll by the Arab American Institute.
Kristen Truitt, a Muslim American voter in Atlanta, has voted for Democrats in prior elections but now says the party will not have his support over its position on Israel.
"Just to give unlimited funds and access to Israel, I think that is totally ridiculous," Truitt told Fox 5 Atlanta.
This comes just ahead of the one-year mark of the ongoing war in Gaza between Israeli forces and Hamas terrorists. The conflict began on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas attacked Israel and took more than 250 hostages, which prompted retaliatory action from Israel's military.
The Hamas-run government's Gaza Health Ministry estimates that more than 41,000 people have been killed in the conflict, although it does not distinguish between civilian and terrorist deaths. More than 1,500 people have reportedly been killed in Israel since the start of the conflict, with most of them being killed on Oct. 7 and its immediate aftermath.
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The growing group of Muslim voters in Georgia and across the country have said they will not vote for Harris or Trump due to both sides' vocal support of Israel in its war in Gaza, and the conflict is now expanding to include Israel attacking Hezbollah terror targets in Lebanon.
"What we're trying to say is we should really do away with the logic of voting for the 'lesser of two evils,'" Kareem Rosshandler, Georgia co-chair of the "Abandon Harris" campaign, told Fox 5.
The "Abandon Harris" campaign group is urging Muslims to vote third-party to send a message to Republicans and Democrats that they need to earn the votes of the Muslim community.
"I think the main one is to say that the Muslim community in the United States won't be taken for granted," Rosshandler said.
Rosshandler said the group has already secured commitments from more than 10,000 Muslim voters to support third-party candidates. Some third-party candidates, including Libertarian Chase Oliver and the Green Party's Jill Stein, have been critical of Israel's war in Gaza.
The loss of Muslim voters is expected to hurt Harris more than Trump, as the Republican candidate has previously struggled to secure Muslim votes.
"That would essentially have a greater adverse impact on the Harris-Waltz ticket than it would on Trump-Vance," Emory University assistant professor of law Alicia Hughes, who is also a voting expert, told Fox 5 Atlanta. "Trump, historically, has not been able to count on those votes."
Hughes also says that if Harris or Trump were more vocally critical of Israel, it may not help their election chances either.
"There's a great possibility that you would lose more from the change than you would actually gain," she said.