Biden was welcomed to the Midwestern state in part by pro-Palestinian protesters accusing him of supporting a “genocide” in Gaza, with a demonstration taking place near his meeting with members of the United Auto Workers union, whose leadership recently endorsed him.
As the Israeli military keeps pounding Hamas in Gaza in retribution for the group’s October 7 attacks, and the civilian death toll keeps rising, Biden is finding himself confronted regularly at public events by protesters and hecklers demanding a ceasefire.
The Democrat began his Michigan visit by chatting with diners in a restaurant popular with African Americans — another demographic whose support he needs as he seeks reelection and the defeat of his likely challenger Donald Trump.
However, he risks losing the votes of the state’s sizeable community of Muslims and people of Arab heritage this November. That could be a problem in an election decided by tiny margins.
Michigan is one of a handful of swing states that could go either way in November, playing a decisive role in the electoral math during a close election.
Biden only beat Trump narrowly there in 2020.
Illustrating the tension, Biden’s campaign manager went last week to Dearborn — home to the largest concentration of Arab Americans in the United States — only to be snubbed by the Detroit suburb’s mayor.“The situation in the West Bank — in particular high levels of extremist settler violence, forced displacement of people and villages, and property destruction — has reached intolerable levels,” Biden said in his order announcing the sanctions.
The current fighting in Gaza was triggered by Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of around 1,140 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.
Following the attack, the deadliest in Israel’s history, its military launched a withering offensive that has killed at least 26,900 people in Gaza, most of them women and children, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.
On Wednesday a group of Dearborn organizations called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.
The city’s mayor, Abdullah Hammoud, had earlier written on X, formerly Twitter, that he refused to meet with Biden’s campaign manager.
“I will not entertain conversations about elections while we watch a live-streamed genocide backed by our government,” he said.
