Minnesota Muslims are divided over presidential race, with some abandoning Democrats over Gaza

As Friday prayers ended and hundreds of men filed out of the mosque at Karmel Mall, Mustafa Aweys handed out flyers urging them to vote for a third party in the presidential race.

“Hey, how you doing?” Aweys asked one worshipper, pressing a flier into his hand. “Salam alaikum,” he greeted another.

Aweys had come to the south Minneapolis Somali mall to convince Muslims to jettison their traditional loyalty to the Democratic Party and protest what his movement, Abandon Harris, describes as the Biden administration’s continued enabling of a genocide by Israel in Gaza.

The anti-Harris group is advocating that Muslims and their allies vote for Green Party candidate Jill Stein, who has pledged to end the war that started after the Hamas terrorist group killed nearly 1,200 Israelis and took 250 hostages in an Oct. 7, 2023 attack. Since then, retaliatory strikes by Israel in Gaza have killed 43,000 Palestinians and wounded many more.

Concern about the war has roiled Muslims in Minnesota and a series of election battleground states. Some Somali American voters are weighing how far they are willing to go to punish Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee. The only major-party alternative, Republican candidate Donald Trump, has disparaged the resettlement of Somali refugees — Minnesota’s largest Muslim group — enacted a travel ban from Somalia and six other Muslim-majority countries during his presidency, and reduced refugee admissions, including those from Somalia, to record lows.

The responses Aweys fielded outside the mosque showed the depth of the political split.

One man nodded at the flier and said: “We don’t want Republicans, we don’t want Democrats. … This woman [Stein] will help Palestine.”

Another said: “I’m voting for Kamala Harris, straight up.”

When Aweys asked why, the man replied: “Lesser of the two evils.”

Aweys pressed: “How is it the lesser of the two evils if she’s committing the genocide?”

“She’s not, it’s Israel. But I’ll just tell you right now … [voting third-party] is a Trump vote,” the man said as he handed the flyer back to Aweys. “I’m not going to take this.”

Emgage Action, a major Muslim voter mobilization organization operating in battleground states, has endorsed Harris. But many community members are angry about the Biden administration’s failure to get the two sides to agree to a ceasefire, according to Muslim leader Yusuf Abdulle.

“It is one of the most consequential elections that we have seen, and also it is very controversial … the community is divided, definitely,” said Abdulle, who is executive director of the Minneapolis-based Islamic Association of North America but stressed that he was not speaking for the organization.

He said most of the Muslim religious leaders in Minnesota are supporting Harris because they think that both Democrats and Republicans will take similar positions on Israel, but that Democrats will do better at fighting Islamophobia and other issues affecting them domestically. That’s why Abdulle agreed to include his name in a coalition of three dozen Somali imams, religious scholars and community leaders who recently endorsed Harris in St. Cloud.

Trump has pledged support for Israel, reportedly telling President Benjamin Netanyahu in a phone call, “Do what you have to do.” He’s also sought to portray Harris as an enemy of Muslims.

Harris has indicated that her policies generally align with Biden’s and has not clearly delineated how she would depart from his approach if elected president. She has touted her support for Israel, said she supports a two-state solution, demanded the release of hostages and said that the war must end.

Minnesota’s highest-ranking Muslim elected leaders, U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minneapolis, and Attorney General Keith Ellison, are campaigning for Harris. City Council Member Jamal Osman and state Rep. Mohamud Noor, both Somali American, also told the Minnesota Star Tribune they are backing the vice president.

In interviews with broadcaster Mehdi Hassan, Omar has questioned how leaders can call for a cease-fire but continue to send weapons to Israel. Omar did credit Harris for posting on X that international humanitarian law must be respected, maintaining that Harris’ remarks prompted Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to send a letter to Israeli leaders indicating that America would restrict weapons sales if Israel did not permit more humanitarian assistance into Gaza.

“She [Harris] does seem to constantly say she wants to follow the law, and it is my expectation that she will,” Omar said. She added that genocide won’t end with the election of Trump.

“Jill Stein herself talks about the fact that the chances of her winning are nonexistent, and so in places where the margins are small, you have to worry about what that means in regard to a second Trump presidency,” Omar said. “And speaking for myself, that is not something I am willing to risk.”

Stein spoke at a small gathering hosted by Abandon Harris in Minneapolis two weeks ago, saying Harris doesn’t own their vote — she must earn it.

“We want health care, we want housing, we want climate action — we want real security using our tax dollars here at home instead of creating chaos and war and genocide in Gaza and beyond,’' Stein said.

Muslim leaders in Minnesota launched a movement to abandon Biden a year ago over the ceasefire issue. The effort grew as more than 650,000 Democrats nationwide voted “uncommitted” in the primaries, including 1 in 5 DFL voters in Minnesota.

Now the group is linking Harris to Biden’s policies and concentrating on states where Muslim voters can influence tight races, such as Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, among others. While Harris is projected to win in Minnesota, Abandon Harris still hopes to send a message here and is conducting outreach in the Twin Cities, Rochester, St. Cloud, Willmar and Faribault.

Abshir Omar, who spoke at the Stein event, volunteered with President Obama’s first campaign in 2008. But after a drone strike by the Obama administration killed his brother in Somalia three years later, Omar worked as Sen. Bernie Sanders’ political coordinator in Iowa for the 2020 presidential race.

“I still have the same values; [the Democrats] are just moving in a different direction,” he said. “Now I’m in a position in my life where … what I believe in is more important than any candidate, than any party.”

He said Somali American social, cultural and religious values align with the GOP, but most of them voted for Democrats out of concern that the GOP was rooted in racism and more hawkish on war. Now, he said, Republicans are doing more outreach and many in his community disagree with Democrats on foreign policy. “The Democrats are going to come in for a rude awakening,” he said.

Several local political organizers reported misunderstandings in the Somali American community about the Abandon Harris movement, with some constituents assuming that means they should either vote for Trump or not vote at all.

Ruqia Abdi, doing outreach for Abandon Harris, has been telling them, “The point here is when you leave a blank or vote for a third party, although they may not win, they will know you are protesting so they will hear you.”

Jovita Morales, leader of the Minnesota Immigrant Movement, said that when she knocked on doors in the last election in the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood of Minneapolis, all but one Somali American planned to vote Democrat. She estimated, to her shock, that 35% or 40% of those who answered the door this fall said they would vote for Trump.

Aweys, a recent University of Minnesota graduate, has been making the rounds to mosques and Somali gathering places in Minnesota to make a final pitch to voters. He’s heading to Madison, Wis., with other volunteers this week to spread the word in a true battleground state.

During one of Aweys’ visits to the Karmel Mall this month to stump for Stein to a table of Somali men, one of them interjected, “She’s not going to win. I’m voting for Trump.”

The voter, Sharmake Mohamud of Rosemount, owns a trucking company and usually votes Democrat. Now, his top issue is the economy, which he said is “terrible.” It was better under Trump, he said.

Is he concerned about Gaza? Mohamud maintains that no candidate can win the office without the influential American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), a pro-Israel lobbying group, so Gaza won’t be a factor in his presidential vote.

Asked if he would also back Trump, the man next to Mohamud said, “Hell, no.” He’s concerned about the war and is voting third-party.

When Aweys returned to the Karmel Mall to catch Friday prayer-goers the following week, he was undeterred after the pro-Harris man argued with him that a vote for Stein is a vote for Trump, and he continued to hand out fliers.

Abdirahman Mohamed, a transportation business owner living in Lakeville, watched the dispute as he sat on a nearby bench. He had already decided he would vote for Stein and was disenchanted with Democrats for many reasons beyond Gaza: He felt the economy was bad and was critical of the White House sending billions to Ukraine to help it in its war against Russian aggression.

“I used to be a Democrat,” he said, “but not anymore.”