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Democrats lost support with Somali Minnesota voters in 2024 presidential election

Once a reliable Democratic voting bloc, Somali Americans increasingly turned away from the party in last week’s presidential election.

Support for Democratic nominee Kamala Harris, who won Minnesota but much more narrowly than President Joe Biden did in 2020, dropped in three Minneapolis precincts with large East African populations. While Harris won each precinct, she did so by far thinner margins than Biden.

In the Somali American hub of Cedar-Riverside, support for Harris dropped 14 percentage points. Votes for Harris also dropped in precincts in the Seward neighborhood and along West Lake Street by 9 and 12 percentage points, respectively.

Opposition to the Biden administration’s handling of the Israel-Gaza War roiled Somali and Muslim Americans across the country, one of the factors contributing to why Harris lost traditionally Democratic support nationwide. In Minnesota, local activists passed out fliers in mosques and Somali malls in the weeks leading up to the election advocating that people abandon Harris and vote third-party for what they described as the White House’s enabling of genocide in the Middle East.

Interviews with voters and community leaders also point to other factors: a belief that the economy was much better under Trump, an interest in preserving socially conservative cultural values, and frustration that Democrats take their votes for granted while failing to address their concerns.

“We used to be bloc voters, where we just voted for whoever Democrats bring along,” said Abdul Yusuf, a Minneapolis consultant who is involved in a movement advocating for parental rights regarding the information children receive on gender issues in public schools. “That time is gone.”

In a national exit poll, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a major Muslim advocacy organization, found Green Party candidate Jill Stein received 53% of the Muslim vote, Trump secured 21% and Harris received 20%. Some believe that Harris lost the battleground state of Michigan due to opposition from Muslim voters over Gaza; Trump won the heavily Arab American city of Dearborn and secured the endorsement of several Muslim leaders in the state.

Jaylani Hussein, executive director of the Minnesota chapter of CAIR, worked to defeat Harris in battleground states as a leader of the Abandon Harris movement. He said he heard from Muslim leaders in those states that surrogates for Trump “went above and beyond” to reach out to them. Hussein said they didn’t always have comfortable conversations, as community leaders questioned why Trump had previously demonized Muslims, but “today there are a lot more Muslims who are feeling a lot better that Trump is in.”

Meanwhile, he said he believes the issue of Gaza hurt Democrats in ways they continue to ignore. That includes in Minnesota, where Hussein said the Democratic ticket’s margin should not have been as close — especially given that Harris’ running mate was Gov. Tim Walz. Harris won the state by 4%; Biden triumphed by almost twice that margin.

Still, Stein failed to make much headway in Minnesota despite Abandon Harris’ endorsement. The Green Party antiwar candidate garnered just 0.5 % support in Minnesota, or 16,271 votes — less than half of what she did in 2016. Hussein acknowledged that there wasn’t a lot of energy for Stein and that the Green Party lacked a significant ground game; he thinks there were also more people who didn’t vote at all and met many young people who felt disengaged.

Hussein believes that local Democrats’ efforts later in the campaign to push for Harris in the community backfired — as did the candidate’s decision to rally with Republican Liz Cheney. Trump repeatedly assailed her and her father Dick Cheney as warmongers, and “attacking his own party, the Republicans, during the Iraq War, and what they did … it was a talking point that resonated significantly with the American Muslim population,” said Hussein.