HOWELL, Mich. — A pro-Trump political-action committee is airing an advertisement on Monday Night Football in the Detroit area in a final effort to sway swing-state Michigan’s sizable Middle Eastern population towards the former president.
“This November, our security will be on the ballot. And we have a choice to make: Will we stand with the president who made peace possible, or will we allow another four years of war and misery by a candidate endorsed by Cheney?” says Oubai Shahbandar in the ad, which will be aired in predominantly Muslim Dearborn.
Shahbandar, the founder of Arab Americans for a Better America, is a Syrian-American activist and foreign-policy analyst who has been working for months in Michigan to encourage Arab- and Muslim-Americans to vote for Donald Trump.
Alongside Tiffany Trump’s father-in-law Massad Boulos and former ambassador Ric Grenell, Shahbandar has taken part in several community events — including meet-and-greets with UFC fighters — meant to win over swing-state Middle Eastern voters with promises that the Republican nominee will bring peace abroad.
Trump himself visited Dearborn Friday to meet with Arab-American leaders and hammer home this message.
“For peace and for our families, join me in voting for Donald Trump,” Shahbandar concludes in the spot.
The possibility of a mass exodus of Michigan’s Middle Eastern community from the Democratic Party has become apparent in recent weeks; an October Arab-American Institute poll showed Harris and Trump virtually tied among Arab Americans nationally, with Trump drawing 42% of their support and Kamala Harris 41%.
The vice president addressed speculation on this issue Monday in Detroit, where she told a reporter, “I also know well enough to know it [the Middle Eastern community] is not a monolith. . . . And on the subject of Gaza, I have been very clear: The level of death of innocent Palestinians is unconscionable. We need to end the war, and we need to get the hostages out.”
