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For Immediate Release
September, 09 2024, 03:15pm EDT
Contact:
CAIR National Communications Director Ibrahim Hooper, ihooper@cair.com
CAIR Swing State Data Shows Muslim Voters Hold Diverse Preferences, Still Up for Grabs in 2024
The Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, today released additional results from its August 25-27 presidential election survey of 1,155 American Muslim voters showing Muslim voter preferences varying somewhat based on sex, age, race, party affiliation and location, with Muslim voters favoring Dr. Jill Stein in the swing states of Arizona, Michigan, and Wisconsin while Vice President Kamala Harris leads among Muslim voters in Georgia and Pennsylvania and Donald Trump leads in Nevada.
Conducted in partnership with Molitical Consulting LLC, the additional survey results also show how Muslim voter preferences differ based on gender, race, party affiliation, age and likelihood of voting.
CLICK HERE: READ CAIR NEW SWING STATE ELECTION REPORT
Key Survey Findings:
- Overall: CAIR’s initial August 25-27 survey revealed that 29.4% of American Muslims plan to vote for Kamala Harris of the Democratic Party, virtually tied with Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party, who follows closely with 29.1%. At the same time, Donald Trump of the Republican Party garners 11.2% of the vote, and Dr. Cornel West of the People’s Party receives 4.2%. Chase Oliver of the Libertarian Party has less than 1% support, with 16.5% of respondents remaining undecided.
- Battleground States: Dr. Stein is leading Harris in Arizona (35%) Michigan (40%) and Wisconsin (44%), while Harris leads Stein in Georgia (43%) and Pennsylvania (37%). Trump’s highest support is observed in Nevada (27%), just ahead of Harris (26%).
- Gender: Kamala Harris leads among Muslim male voters with 29%, while Dr. Jill Stein holds a stronger position among Muslim women at 34%. Donald Trump has similar levels of support among men (14%) and women (10%). Additionally, a higher proportion of men (17%) are undecided compared to women (16%).
- Racial Demographics: Kamala Harris is supported by 55.3% of Black Muslim voters, 28% of Asian Muslims, and 25.6% of White, Arab, and Turkic Muslims. Dr. Jill Stein is supported by 32.7% of White, Arab, and Turkic Muslim voters, 25.7% of Asian Muslims, and 11.2% of Black Muslim voters. Donald Trump is supported by 12.8% of White, Arab, and Turkic Muslims, 12.6% of Asian Muslims, and 9.8% of Black Muslim voters.
- Party Affiliation: Harris slightly leads among Democrats (33%) and Independents (30%), while Dr. Stein also garners significant support from these groups (32% and 28% respectively). Donald Trump’s highest support comes from Republicans (48%).
- Likelihood of Voting: Harris attracts a higher proportion of high-likelihood voters (33%), whereas Dr. Stein has a significant share of moderate-likelihood voters (65%). Trump’s support is concentrated among high-likelihood voters (13%).
- Support for Third Parties: Overall, support for third-party candidates (Stein and West) comes from both Muslim Democrats and Republicans, indicating discontent with both parties’ platforms on the issues that Muslim Americans prioritize.
“These new survey findings make it clear that American Muslim voters have the potential to determine the outcomes in several key battleground states and that they are still up for grabs in the 2024 election,” said CAIR Government Affairs Director Robert S. McCaw. “Candidates running for office cannot afford to overlook the issues that matter most to Muslim Americans. Ignoring this community or taking their votes for granted could be a costly mistake, particularly in swing states like Michigan, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona, Nevada and Wisconsin, where elections are often won by narrow margins. It’s time for candidates at every level of government to invest more time and resources in understanding the concerns of Muslim voters.”
Methodology: Conducted in partnership with Molitical Consulting LLC, the survey was conducted through an SMS text message sent to a proprietary, randomized national list of 40,000 registered Muslim voters from all 50 states, Puerto Rico, and military members serving overseas. The survey was conducted from Sunday, August 25, to Tuesday, August 27, and received 1,478 responses, 1,155 of which were verified and matched to the national voter file. This follow-up report delves into the preferences and trends among Muslim voters following Harris’s entry onto the Democratic ticket. The findings demonstrate significant demographic splits and offer key insights into how Muslim voters are shaping up ahead of the November election.
Why Muslim Votes Matter: As the 2024 national general election approaches, America’s estimated 2.5 million Muslim voters are positioned to once again play a crucial role in shaping the political landscape. With their significant presence in key swing states, Muslim voters have the potential to influence the outcomes of not only the presidential race but also numerous congressional, state, and local elections. This report aims to provide a comprehensive overview of Muslim voters’ political inclinations and voting intentions in this pivotal election year.
Muslims.Vote: As the November election approaches, CAIR plans continue to provide updates on Muslim voter preferences and trends on Muslims.Vote, CAIR’s voter empowerment website.
NOTE: As a 501(c)3 nonprofit, CAIR does not endorse or oppose candidates for office, and makes no claims as to the favorability of one candidate being elected over another.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations is America’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization. Its mission is to enhance the understanding of Islam, protect civil rights, promote justice, and empower American Muslims.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is a grassroots civil rights and advocacy group. CAIR is America's largest Muslim civil liberties and advocacy organization. Its mission is to enhance understanding of Islam, protect civil rights, promote justice, and empower American Muslims.
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Another Columbia Protester Targeted for Deportation Sues Trump
One of Yunseo Chung's attorneys said that the Trump administration's "efforts to punish and suppress speech it disagrees with smack of McCarthyism."
Mar 24, 2025
Yunseo Chung, a junior at Columbia University, sued U.S. President Donald Trump and other top officials in the Southern District of New York on Monday, challenging "the government's shocking overreach in seeking to deport a college student... who is a lawful permanent resident of this country, because of her protected speech."
The 21-year-old, who moved from South Korea to the United States with her family at age 7, participated in some student protests on Columbia's campus "related to Israel's military campaign in Gaza and the devastating toll it has taken on Palestinian civilians," states the complaint. "Chung has not made public statements to the press or otherwise assumed a high-profile role in these protests. She was, rather, one of a large group of college students raising, expressing, and discussing shared concerns."
Earlier this month, she was arrested by the New York Police Department at a student sit-in "to protest what she believed to be the excessive punishments meted out by the Columbia administration to student protesters facing campus disciplinary proceedings," the document details. "Mere days later... the federal government began a series of unlawful efforts to arrest, detain, and remove Ms. Chung from the country because of her protected speech."
The suit asserts that Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) "shocking actions against Ms. Chung form part of a larger pattern of attempted U.S. government repression of constitutionally protected protest activity and other forms of speech," specifically, "university students who speak out in solidarity with Palestinians and who are critical of the Israeli government's ongoing military campaign in Gaza or the pro-Israeli policies of the U.S. government and other U.S. institutions."
Professors at other U.S. universities called the Trump administration's targeting of Chung " frightening" and "absolutely chilling to free speech."
In addition to Trump, Chung is suing Secretary of State Marco Rubio, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, acting ICE Director Todd Lyons, and William Joyce, head of ICE's field office in New York. Her lawyers are seeking a temporary restraining order "barring the government from detaining her based on her protected speech and in the absence of independent, legitimate grounds."
Naz Ahmad, one of Chung's lawyers and co-director of Creating Law Enforcement Accountability & Responsibility (CLEAR), toldThe New York Times that the Trump administration's "efforts to punish and suppress speech it disagrees with smack of McCarthyism."
"Like many thousands of students nationwide, Yunseo raised her voice against what is happening in Gaza and in support of fellow students facing unfair discipline," Ahmad added. "It can't be the case that a straight-A student who has lived here most of her life can be whisked away and potentially deported, all because she dares to speak up."
The newspaper noted how Chung's case resembles that of Mahmoud Khalil, a permanent resident arrested earlier this month after helping lead protests at Columbia, where he finished graduate studies last year:
On March 10, Perry Carbone, a high-ranking lawyer in the federal prosecutor's office, told Ms. Ahmad, Ms. Chung's attorney, that the secretary of state, Mr. Rubio, had revoked Ms. Chung's visa. Ms. Ahmad responded that Ms. Chung was not in the country on a visa and was a permanent resident. According to the lawsuit, Mr. Carbone responded that Mr. Rubio had "revoked that" as well.
The conversation echoed an exchange between Mr. Khalil's lawyers and the immigration agents who arrested him and who did not initially appear to be aware of his residency status.
After his arrest, Mr. Khalil was swiftly transferred, first to New Jersey and ultimately to Louisiana, where he has been detained since. The statute that the Trump administration used to justify his detention and Ms. Chung's potential deportation says that the secretary of state can move against noncitizens whose presence he has reasonable grounds to believe threatens the country's foreign policy agenda. Homeland security officials have since added other allegations against Mr. Khalil.
Chung and Khalil, an Algerian citizen of Palestinian descent, aren't the only critics of Israel's assault on Gaza targeted by the administration. As Common Dreamsreported last week, masked immigration authorities "abducted"Badar Khan Suri, an Indian national and Georgetown University postdoctoral fellow on a student visa. A U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) spokesperson said Rubio determined Suri's "activities and presence" in the United States "rendered him deportable."
Chung's complaint points to the cases of Khalil, Suri, Columbia graduate student
Ranjani Srinivasan, Leqaa Kordia, and Cornell University doctoral student Momodou Taal. The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee earlier this month sued the president, Noem, and DHS on behalf of Taal, Cornell doctoral student Sriram Parasurama, and professor Mukoma Wa Ngũgĩ over "the Trump administration's unconstitutional campaign against free speech."
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Big Oil Doesn't Just Want to Get Rich Wrecking the Climate—They Want Lower Taxes Too
"If this polluter handout is snuck into the GOP tax bill, then cuts to Medicaid and food stamps could well pay for another giveaway to Big Oil," said the co-author of a new report. "That's obscene."
Mar 24, 2025
Having helped install the most fossil fuel-friendly administration of the climate awareness era, Big Oil and their Republican boosters in Congress are now setting their sights on undermining a tax enacted by during the tenure of former President Joe Biden as part of the landmark Inflation Reduction Act.
Alan Zibel, research director at the consumer advocacy watchdog Public Citizen, and Lukas Shankar-Ross, deputy director of Friends of the Earth's Climate and Energy Justice Program, noted in a report published Monday that Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.), who chairs the Senate Ethics Committee, earlier this year introduced industry-backed legislation, the Promoting Domestic Energy Production Act, for possible inclusion in Republicans' proposed $4.5 trillion tax giveaway to corporations and the ultrawealthy.
As Common Dreamsreported in January, the fossil fuel industry spent an estimated $445 million during the 2024 election cycle to elect President Donald Trump and other GOP candidates who serve their climate-wrecking interests, and it expects much in return.
"Domestic oil and gas companies, including from Lankford's home state of Oklahoma, have warned their investors about the corporate alternative minimum tax," Zibel and Shankar-Ross wrote. "The industry could soon be rewarded with specially tailored tax relief courtesy of their Republican political allies."
As the report explains:
Here's how the tax scheme works: In August 2022, President Joe Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act, which made historic climate investments. To help pay for new spending, the bill included a set of corporate tax increases, the largest of which was the $222 billion corporate alternative minimum tax. This tax is meant to prevent corporations that deliver massive profits to investors from paying nothing or nearly nothing in taxes because of corporate-friendly tax loopholes. Under the corporate minimum tax, if a company reports an average of at least $1 billion in annual income over three years, then it must pay 15% of that reported income in taxes, minus certain deductions.
The report highlights Republican efforts to eliminate the minimum tax, including via legislation introduced by Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) and endorsed by the American Petroleum Institute, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, National Association of Manufacturers, National Mining Association, Western Energy Alliance, and industry lobbyists.
The bill introduced by Lankford would enable fossil fuel companies to skirt the minimum tax by allowing them to deduct "intangible" drilling costs, a tactic used as an effective subsidy for more than 120 years. Zibel and Shankar-Ross described the tax dodge as "the oldest and the largest fossil fuel subsidy on the books," and one which "allows all of the costs for drilling an oil or gas well to be deducted immediately in the year they are incurred."
"If individual taxpayers understood the magnitude of the extreme subsidies for Big Oil, they would be shocked."
"It is simply outrageous that the GOP is using its trifecta to create yet another fossil fuel subsidy," Shankar-Ross said in a statement, referring to Republicans' control of the White House and both chambers of Congress. "If this polluter handout is snuck into the GOP tax bill, then cuts to Medicaid and food stamps could well pay for another giveaway to Big Oil. That's obscene."
Zibel asserted that "oil and gas companies are using the political influence they purchased to dodge paying even a minimal part of their fair share."
"If individual taxpayers understood the magnitude of the extreme subsidies for Big Oil, they would be shocked," he added. "The newest effort to bypass even the most modest of tax bills by the industry is shocking, but sadly not surprising."
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'Never Seen a Breach Quite Like This': Journalist Added to Trump Team Group Chat on Bombing Yemen
Reactions included: "Dangerous." "Gross incompetence." "Unfathomable."
Mar 24, 2025
U.S. President Donald Trump's administration came under fire Monday after a journalist revealed that he was added to a group on a commercial messaging application in which top officials discussed secret plans for the recent bombing of Yemen.
"I have never seen a breach quite like this," Jeffrey Goldberg, editor in chief of The Atlantic, wrote of his experience in the group, which began with a March 11 connection request on the app Signal from "Michael Waltz," the name of Trump's national security adviser. The journalist—who has faced public attacks from the president—figured "someone could be masquerading as Waltz in order to somehow entrap me."
However, in the days that followed, Goldberg saw messages from accounts with names or initials of top officials—including Vice President JD Vance, Central Intelligence Agency Director John Ratcliffe, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. On March 15, Trump bombed Yemen, citing the Houthis' interference with global shipping over Israel's U.S.-backed assault on the Gaza Strip.
"Jeffrey Goldberg's reporting in The Atlantic calls for a prompt and thorough investigation...There needs to be an oversight hearing and accountability for these actions."
Goldberg published quotes and screenshots from the group but withheld some details due to security risks for U.S. personnel. Noting a March 15 message from the Pentagon chief, he wrote, "What I will say, in order to illustrate the shocking recklessness of this Signal conversation, is that the Hegseth post contained operational details of forthcoming strikes on Yemen, including information about targets."
The journalist also highlighted how—according to lawyers interviewed by his colleague Shane Harris—Waltz "may have violated several provisions of the Espionage Act," as well as federal records laws, given that he set some messages to eventually disappear.
After Goldberg formally inquired about the Signal group on Monday, Brian Hughes, the spokesperson for the National Security Council, told him: "This appears to be an authentic message chain, and we are reviewing how an inadvertent number was added to the chain... The thread is a demonstration of the deep and thoughtful policy coordination between senior officials. The ongoing success of the Houthi operation demonstrates that there were no threats to troops or national security."
Political figures and observers swiftly weighed in and shared the article on social media, with reporters calling it "unfathomable" and "the must-read of the week," and saying that "this story almost seems too wild to be real, but no one involved is disputing it."
CNN's Christiane Amanpour said: "Amateur hour? Is the president, is America, being properly served? Dangerous."
The group VoteVets took aim at the defense secretary—a former Fox News host—saying: "Gross incompetence. The Trump admin accidentally texted a journalist our war plans. This proves what we always knew: Hegseth was never qualified to be SecDef—now his recklessness is putting troops' lives at risk. This is deadly serious."
Democratic Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz—who was former Vice President Kamala Harris' running mate—pointed to the Department of Government Efficiency's attacks on the federal bureaucracy, including the Department of Veterans Affairs: "You know where DOGE should take a closer look? Trump's Cabinet. None of the 83,000 caregivers Trump fired from the VA leaked classified information."
Congressman Joe Neguse (D-Colo.) said: "If you read one article today, make it this one. Total incompetence, yet again. And putting our national security at great risk."
U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Vice Chair Mark Warner (D-Va.) declared that "this administration is playing fast and loose with our nation's most classified info, and it makes all Americans less safe."
Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) said: "Jeffrey Goldberg's reporting in The Atlantic calls for a prompt and thorough investigation. If senior advisers to President Trump in fact used nonsecure, nongovernment systems to discuss and convey detailed war plans, it's a shocking breach of the standards for sharing classified information that could have put American servicemembers at risk. There needs to be an oversight hearing and accountability for these actions."
When asked about the reporting on Monday, Trump—a serial liar—said: "I don't know anything about it. I'm not a big fan of The Atlantic. It's, to me, it's a magazine that's going out of business. I think it's not much of a magazine, but I know nothing about it."
"You're saying that they had what?" Trump asked the inquiring journalist, who explained that top officials were using Signal to coordinate on sensitive materials related to the U.S. attack targeting the Houthis.
Trump then added: "Well, it couldn't have been very effective, because the attack was very effective, I can tell you that. I don't know anything about it. You're telling me about it for the first time."
Responding to a clip of Trump's remarks, David Badash, founder and editor of The New Civil Rights Movement, said: "1. 100% incompetence if his comms staff did not brief him on this before he got in front of a camera. 2. This is the commander-in-chief admitting that he is unaware of what his top NatSec officials are doing. This is bad."
As Common Dreams has reported, Trump has also faced criticism for the assault on Yemen—which killed more than 50 people, mostly women and children, according to the Yemeni Health Ministry. Critics, including U.S. lawmakers, have long argued that airstrikes on the Middle Eastern country are illegal because Congress has not declared war.
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