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    • Votes for Trump are up significantly in South Paterson NJ. Here’s why
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    Votes for Trump are up significantly in South Paterson NJ. Here’s why

    Harry Posted on

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    In South Paterson, home to one of the country’s largest Middle Eastern communities, anger and despair over the war in Gaza were reflected in the polls.

    Unofficial election results showed Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, once a Democratic stronghold, separated by six votes each with about 41 percent of the vote. Harris was ahead with provisional ballots, and some were still being counted. Another 15 percent of voters chose Jill Stein from the Green Party.

    South Paterson’s vote may not seem surprising in Passaic County, which voted red for the first time since 1992. But it was a big shift in a region where vast majorities chose Democrats in the last two presidential elections and where Trump was seen as hostile to their communities.

    “Most of our community is Democrat,” said Raed Odeh, a South Paterson business owner and community activist. “But they are not happy with Biden and Harris and what they are doing on foreign policy, especially in Gaza and Lebanon.

    “It doesn’t matter if it’s Trump or anyone else,” Odeh said. “They just want to hear that someone will stop this war.”

    Local leaders pleaded with Democrats to reconsider their unconditional support for Israel in the war, but they felt ignored and excluded. The pain was felt deeply in South Paterson, where a large Palestinian community has suffered family members displaced, killed or injured in nearly daily bombings for 13 months.

    Trump has made gains despite his anti-Arab and anti-Muslim comments and policies that earned him little support in previous elections. In the final days of his campaign, Republican Trump they cast their votesMeeting with Arab and Muslim leaders in Michigan, he publicly stated that he wanted to end the war, which began when Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, killing 1,200 people and taking 250 hostages, according to Israeli records.

    Israel’s military campaign in Gaza killed more than 43,500 people; Another 10,000 people are believed to have died and are not counted in the rubble. Palestinian health authorities I told you.

    Some hoped Trump would follow through on his promise, but others were skeptical, including supporters of Stein, a Jewish doctor who ran a pro-Palestinian campaign.

    How did they vote?

    Hillary Clinton I bought six times more There are more votes for Trump in three South Paterson precincts in 2016, according to county data; He received 1,422 votes to Trump’s 228 votes.

    Joe Biden received more than double the votes Trump received in 2020, according to the University of Florida Election Lab dataThis shows Biden receiving 1,364 votes to Trump’s 558.

    In the past, Arab and Muslim voters have been turned off by Trump’s anti-Muslim rhetoric and policies banning many Middle Eastern immigrants from coming to the United States. They were outraged by his false claims that he had seen thousands of Muslims celebrating 9/11 in New Jersey.

    This year was different.

    Support for Trump has increased among different groups, with many citing high living costs and immigration concerns as reasons. Some Muslims and Arabs, especially business owners, said they supported Trump because they believed his policies were better for the economy. But overall, in surveys and interviews, they routinely cited the war in Gaza and Lebanon as the main factor in their 2024 decisions.

    Alaa’a Ashkar, a 21-year-old Palestinian American college student from South Paterson, said several relatives and acquaintances support Trump, but she feels she and Harris are “two sides of the same coin.” He voted for Stein for the first time in a presidential election.

    Referring to the situation in Gaza, he said, “I felt like the other two were completely contrary to my moral values, my perspective and my stances on issues, but it’s clear that genocide is number one.” Some experts They described it as genocide, but Israel rejected fee.

    The unofficial count in South Paterson shows Harris with 562 votes, six more than Trump, and Stein with 204 votes.

    The region is also home to Syrians, Turks, Jordanians and Dominicans. South Paterson’s Main Street, renamed Palestine Way in 2022, is lined with Arab- and Turkish-owned shops, restaurants, bakeries and professional offices. The councilman representing South Paterson and the city’s mayor are Arab American. Here, US policy in the Middle East seems deeply personal.

    Who could be worse?

    For some, it was a question of who would be worse for the Palestinians: Trump or Harris? Arab and Muslim voters in the region wrestled with their decisions.

    Monty Saleh, a Paramus resident who owns furniture stores, voted for Trump in 2024 and previous elections, believing his policies were better for the economy and business. This year the Middle East was his biggest concern. Trump will be a stronger leader in the region, he said.

    “I think he’s true to his word, and I think there’s more change in the Republican Party than the Democrats, especially now… I don’t think Trump will stay silent like the Democrats,” he said.

    Palestinian American Raslan Mohamed, who lives in South Paterson, did not vote at all. He doesn’t think it will make a difference. “Whichever one of them becomes president, they will not be on our side,” he said.

    Robert Bateh, a lifelong Republican from Warren, is working with the Ramallah Foundation, a U.S. charity, to build a seniors center on the West Bank. He was concerned that Trump would support Israel’s annexation of Palestinian territory. He wrote “free Palestine” in his presidential ballot.

    “I definitely can’t vote for Harris, given what she’s done with Biden over the last 13 months,” he said. “As much as I understand Stein’s votes, as a Republican I do not support his policies in any way.”

    ‘Protest vote’

    Salaheddin Mustafa, outreach director for the Paterson-based Islamic Center of Passaic County, one of the state’s largest mosques, said Democrats are offering “meaningless” speeches while people’s families are being killed by U.S.-supplied bombs.

    During his campaign, Harris insisted He would continue to pressure all players in the Middle East to reach a ceasefire agreement, but he could not convince voters who felt that the United States was not using its influence to make it happen.

    Still, Mustafa believes most of the support for Trump was a “protest vote.” He said people were worried that Trump would punish free speech and dissidents and deport their friends and neighbors, but they wanted to send a message to the party.

    He said their vote was “a loud cry to send a loud message to our elected officials, especially in New Jersey, who are largely Democratic, that our community votes and should not be ignored in this way.”

    “I don’t know that people believe (Trump) will bring peace,” he said. “There are a lot of people looking for the responsible party to do a lot more.”

    Harry
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