(Daily Caller) If 75% of the roughly 200,000 Muslim Americans in Michigan cast their vote on November 5, Vice President Kamala Harris will be virtually guaranteed to lose the state and its critical 15 electoral votes.
That’s what one activist group in the state, Drive for 75, believes. And to achieve it, Rex Nazarko and his organization are barnstorming Mosques, hosting voter promotion sermons and knocking on thousands of doors across the state.
“What was a guarantee for [a Harris loss] to happen? We tried with different percentages and different turnouts, and with the 75% number, again, accounting only for the Muslim community, not other communities, not other allies, not other progressives. It essentially guaranteed a 99.9% likelihood of the vice president losing the election in Michigan, if 75% of [the community turned out],” Nazarko told the Caller, explaining that they ran numerous mathematical simulations to inform their strategy.
“We ran that simulation 10,000 times, and almost every time that was the case. So that’s how we got the Drive for 75 call to action and idea,” he explained.
Though Harris hasn’t faced nearly as many pro-Palestinian protestors as President Joe Biden, efforts to thwart the Democrats’ presidential aspirations haven’t disappeared. Muslim Americans told the Daily Caller they are working to push their community to vote for Green Party candidate Dr. Jill Stein, or even in some cases former President Donald Trump, in an effort to hold Harris accountable for how she and Biden have handled the Israel-Hamas war.
In light of some establishment Muslim “endorsements” of Kamala Harris, patronizing our community as a politically immature and hesitant monolith, claiming they represent us, I put some thoughts down in this article highlight the strategic interest for Muslims to NOT vote for… https://t.co/ZZWQrnm5Ss
— Rex Nazarko (الباني) (@RexAlbanii) September 26, 2024
“[The Muslim American community] lost their faith in the Democratic Party and the Democratic administration, so they’re out to kind of hold them accountable. And I don’t want to necessarily say punish, but it is also a punishment vote, in a sense. I think that they’re desperate. We’re desperate. It’s also a vote of desperation. You know, we want to see an end to this bloodshed and this genocide as soon as possible,” Nazarko told the Caller.
The Michiganders who spoke to the Caller acknowledged Trump might not have the Israel-Gaza policy the community hopes to see, but their effort is more focused on punishing the current administration than about who they could vote into office. The movement is also about sending a message to politicians that their voice cannot be ignored, Democrat Khalid Turaani, co-chair of the Abandon Biden campaign in Michigan, told the Caller.
“We’re hoping that, whether Republicans or Democrats, will not take our vote for granted. So if it is [spoiling Harris’s chances], I hope it teaches not only the Democrats but the Republicans that, you go against your voters, you go against people as well. You continue to support a genocide, you’re going to lose,” Turaani told the Caller.
We’ve launched a dedicated website to host a letter signed by Muslim American Imams, urging Muslim Americans to consider voting for a third party.
Please note, this letter is NOT an endorsement of any specific political party.
The website will be updated daily with a growing…
— Abandon Harris (@Abandonbiden24) October 1, 2024
