At 9 p.m., only a few people crowd around Lava Java, the smoky hookah lounge in Dearborn, Michigan, that is hosting the Arab Americans For Trump (AAFT) election watch party.

There may be more members of the international and local press here than participants.

But there is an air of confidence and pride among Arab Americans who say they have worked tirelessly since the spring to make sure former President Donald Trump’s campaign hears them. And indeed, he became the only presidential candidate to show up on their doorstep, in the capital of Arab America.

As one of the seven swing states in the United States, Michigan is considered one where even a small number of votes could determine the outcome of the election.

In 2020, for example, Democrats narrowly won Michigan. Four years earlier, Trump won the state by just 10,000 votes.

Among the organizers is Wasel Yousaf, a Syrian-American resident who voted for Trump in 2016 and 2020, and who seems very relieved that so many other Arabs now feel the same way.

“I can’t say a single thing. (Trump) is a great guy. He is so different now from 2016. He is so humble, so acceptable,” Yousaf told Middle East Eye.

“People are starting to love him now…he showed love to everyone.”

Yousaf has served as the AAFT’s point man in Michigan and has been in regular contact with Massad Boulos, the Lebanese businessman who serves as Trump’s adviser on Arab Americans. Boulos is also the stepfather of Trump’s youngest daughter, Tiffany.

Yousaf met several members of the Trump family and described the Trump clan as embodying family values ​​close to those of Arabs and their close-knit culture.

“The good person always has many enemies,” Yousaf said.

As he goes out to greet the latest arrival at the makeshift party, he brings in Dearborn Heights Mayor Bill Bazzi.

Bazzi spent 21 years in the U.S. Marines, after emigrating from southern Lebanon at age 12 and experiencing the civil war there. Unlike his better-known Dearborn counterpart, Abdullah Hammoud, Bazzi supported Trump.

“One of the main reasons I supported Trump is because he preaches the same thing: stop the war,” Bazzi told MEE.

His Dearborn Heights residents are struggling to afford basic necessities, he added, because “this economy is out of control” due to inflation in the post-Covid-19 era.

And while Arabs have priorities, they are not single-issue voters.

“We don’t have good leaders in the White House,” he said. “I don’t know who runs this country.”

There seems to be even fewer people in this hookah lounge now that the media is speaking out – even though Trump leads Harris in the early results.

Arab Americans are not “indifferent”

At McDonald Elementary School, the sun was beginning to set and a traffic jam was forming around the school. Today, the school was a polling site for precincts one and two in east Dearborn, a heavily Arab neighborhood.

Outside, the booming voice of actor and lawyer Amer Zahr echoed through the premises: “Don’t forget to vote for the school board!” he said.

The Palestinian American and local resident is running for the Dearborn school board — one of at least half a dozen “down-ballot races” in which civic engagement advocates have pushed voters to s ‘commit, even if they wanted to leave the top of the poll. void and renounce all presidential candidates.

Media from across the country were there, including a New York Times editor who was attempting to conduct his own exit poll.

Election officials here told MEE that turnout will most likely exceed 2020 figures by the time polls close. And in 2020, there was no pre-election day or in-person voting to consider. They seemed happy.

“A lot of people thought that the Arab-American community would remain indifferent and not vote. This is not true. It’s the opposite,” Zahr told MEE, between arguments with new voters in the street.

“What is happening is that the Arab community is coming forward, taking advantage of this historic opportunity to show that we can be a major factor (of change),” he said.

As voters came out, the predominant response to the question “Who did you vote for?” » Until now, it was either Donald Trump or Green Party candidate Jill Stein. It appears more men voted for Trump.