Muslims Voted Against Trump but Less So Than 2016

By Yousuf Ali

The 2020 election was marked by unprecedented turnout levels amongst the general public with current estimates being about 2/3rds of American electorate voting in the presidential election with votes still being counted. Furthermore, this was a fairly active year for the Muslim community who were extra motivsted by the the Trump administration being up for re-election.

Many Muslim organizations put extra efforts into organizing this election cycle including Emgage. At the same time, there were surprising results regarding Muslim support levels despite the organizing efforts and acticism mentioned beforehand. The majority of Muslims voted for Biden, but Donald Trump received a greater level of Muslims support than he did in 2016.

NPR did a story documenting some of the sources of support for the Republican party within the Muslim community. According to NPR, “ In fact, Trump appears to have gotten more, not less support from American Muslims. Associated Press exit polls show 35% of Muslims voted for Trump and 64% for Joe Biden. A separate poll from a Muslim civil rights group found that 17% of Muslims voted for Trump, but that was still up by 4 percentage points from its poll in 2016. Muslims make up a small percentage of the population, but their vote is key in states such as Michigan. It’s a state where Biden won by about 155,000 votes. Trump won Michigan in 2016 by under 11,000.”

Furthermore, race was the biggest predictor of whether or not Muslims were likely to vote for Trump, with th[ose] identifying as White being more likely to vote for Trump. According the Emgage CEO, “But when you understand that the Muslim community is not a monolith and that it includes those who – for example – may have supported Trump’s economic policies, or policies on taxes and may have supported his perceived position on certain foreign policy issues … it’s not as surprising.” ISPU also provided commentary to the NPR story.