US Midterms 2026 Latest: The Arab-Americans turning on Trump

Thanks for being with us for Al Jazeera's Midterms Roundup. I'm Jonah Hull. Republicans and Democrats are scrambling to win as much support as they can just four days now before voters pick a new Congress. The president himself has put campaign rallies in two major battleground states back on his schedule less than 24 hours after cancelling them. Both rallies were in places the Republicans never thought they'd have to fight this hard to defend, Kansas and Iowa. Well, we've got correspondents in key locations in Florida, in Texas, in Georgia and in North Carolina, where we begin with Tanya Noory. And Tanya, the president has been crisscrossing the United States over the past fortnight, visiting multiple states, sometimes multiple times, places like Texas, Georgia, South Carolina. What are your sources, Tanya, telling you about these last minute changes to his schedule? A little scheduling whiplash there, but my sources are texting me back on, all capital letters, exclamation point. He is energized to go back and rally in person on Sunday, and so I have been told that this schedule change was due to accommodate even more tele-rallies. He has approximately 20 scheduled over the weekend, and then he will rally in person. In back-to-back states on Sunday, and so what I'm being told is that this is personal for the president, because he thinks that he can drag Republicans across the finish line just by mobilizing his base, because in some key Senate races in reliably red states, they are closer than expected, just like in Kansas, where he will be returning on Sunday. That race, the Republican is down by 10 points, and so that is not something that we would I'm going to ask you about the Democratic candidate that you usually see because that is a reliably red state. Another example of that is in South Carolina where I was just at yesterday and where he rallied. And that candidate, Darlene Graham, is head to head tied evenly with the Democratic candidate, Annie Andrews. And so the president, he is telling voters to lock in and to really. Go out and vote as if he's the one on the ballot. And so his team has told me that they have seen a trend that when he does attend in person, it really fires up the base and Republican voters. And so that's what they're hoping for, Jonah. OK, Tanya, thanks for that. Well, the president's next appearance is going to be in just a few hours time in Florida, where John Holman is standing by to watch in Miami. And John, why is the president in Florida? After all, this is another state that should be reliably Republican. Well, Presumably one of the reasons that he quite likes the place. He's got his home here, Mar-a-Lago. But also, you're right, Jonah, in terms of the Republican candidates for the major races. That's Byron Donald, who's going for the governorship, and Ashley Moody, who's going for the Senate. They have been ahead in the polls, but both of those races have been competitive. The Democrat going for the governorship is David Jolly. And he was a Republican who became an Independent who became a Democrat. So there's been a bit of buzz about him. Whether he can claw some Republican votes away from Byron Donalds, possibly people that haven't liked the direction that the party has been taken under President Trump. Currently, polls say that might sit around 10% of those votes that he can grab. And he's still behind Byron Donalds. In terms of the Senate race, the Democrat candidate is Angie Nixon. She was a surprise when she run the primaries, as President Trump has noted disparagingly. She is a card-carrying socialist. She's proud of that. She's more from the progressive wing of the party. So two very different strategies there. But the chief issues... Four people in Florida remain pretty much the same as they have been for some time. The cost of living and particularly the cost of housing. The cost of homes has gone up by about 83 percent basically since the start of the pandemic. The reason for that relaxed COVID rules here in Florida, a lot of people coming down from other cities like New York, really taking advantage of that, pushing the market up. Home insurance also. Home rentals. So when people come to the polls like the one we're at to vote, the decision will be which vision they want to pick to try and resolve that. The Democrats getting government more involved or the Republicans wanting government less involved, to put it very simplistically. John, thanks for all that. Now, there's a tight Senate race going on in Texas. You'd think it too would be Republican or at least Republican leaning, but will it and is it? Let's go to Phil Lavelle. He's in Houston. And Phil, early voting has just come to an end. Yeah, oh, it's just about to, Jonah. You know, we've still got a little bit to go. And, you know, 6.1 million Texans have voted already in early voting. And to put that into context, that is half a million more. than in 2022. And of course, there is still that rest of the day to go. In fact, look at this. This is this polling station that we've been at a few times over the last two weeks. You would think by now, as you get towards the end of early voting, that the numbers would die down, right? That people would have voted as much as they can. But no, they are coming. It's almost like people have realized that the time is running out and they've got a few hours to get those early votes in or they've got to come back on Tuesday. I'm going to show you something else as well. So you see all of these signs. These are what you get outside polling stations. There's this barrier. is as far as they can get towards the polling station. The number of signs here has absolutely exploded over the last 24, 48 hours because these candidates all know they've now got limited time to appeal to voters. And look, you can barely see the grass. They're even across the street as they try to eke out every last vote. And Houston particularly is getting a lot of attention right now because Harris County, where this city sits, is the most populous. in the United States. So we've got James Tallarico campaigning here. We've got Ken Paxton campaigning here over the next 24 hours. In fact, Ken Paxton cancelled another event in El Paso, and we understand that's because he wants to divert more attention to this part of the world, where they're really trying to drive out those voter numbers. One other thing to tell you about the Paxton campaign is that, remember, Donald Trump said a few days ago that Republicans were winning big in Texas. Obviously, the public polls do not suggest that. They suggest this is a toss-up. Ken Paxton actually put a fundraising request out last night on X in which he said, and I quote, this is a dead heat. So perhaps not on the same page as the president. Phil, thanks for that. To Michigan now, where the race for the Senate is a hugely consequential one, of course, where religious and cultural identity are key issues. And as Al Jazeera's Richard Gaisford discovered in Dearborn, Donald Trump's attacks on Abdul El-Sayed are pushing some Arab Americans away from the Republicans. At a Middle Eastern supermarket in Dearborn, Detroit, you certainly get a sense of buyer's remorse. Have you voted for Donald Trump before? I did. Yes, I did. I'm one of them that voted for him. But he shocked me, honestly, the way how he's been acting. Samar now switching to the Democrats. There is one very prominent candidate here in Michigan, Dr. Abdel El-Sayed. Do you feel that you are a... I'm 100% with him. You are 100... Okay, why are you... You know why? Because it's not about because I'm Muslim and he's Muslim. It's because he really cares about all the religions. At Abdul El-Sayed's graduation, former President Bill Clinton saw him as a unifier. I wish every person in the world who believes that we are fated to have a clash of civilizations and cannot reach across the religious divides could have heard you speak today. Donald Trump calls him a terrorist. I'm here to keep a... Jihadist Muslim Brotherhood member from becoming a United States Senator. I think what shocks me is that I'm still watching and hearing and seeing this at age 64 and a half. The same stuff I experienced as a child. Abdul Rahman's of Lebanese descent, born and brought up in Dearborn, and shares the same first name as Al-Sayed. He tells me it wouldn't fit on the registration card when he started school, so they called him Ray instead. Abdul Sayed is way beyond this issue of is he Arab and Muslim and is this a Palestinian issue. He's speaking the truth and it's resonating. The president visited Dearborn two years ago. Since then, his popularity with Arab Americans has fallen. There's more than three and a half million Arab Americans living right across the country, but it's the 200,000 or so registered to vote here in Michigan that could make a big difference. But others with Middle Eastern heritage aren't changing sides. Jacob's one of nearly 200,000 Iraqi Chaldean Christians living in Michigan. It's a group Republican Mike Rogers is relying on for support. I vote for the people who are going to serve the country, serve the interests and the policies that we in line with. You know, is he for business? Is he for education? In a race so close, choices made in communities like these are likely to determine who takes the entire state. Richard Gaisford, Al Jazeera, Detroit. On another Democratic Senate seat, the party is really hoping to hold on to its Georgia, where incumbent John Ossoff has a comfortable lead over Republican challenger Mike Collins. Former Vice President Kamala Harris campaigned alongside Ossoff in Atlanta on Thursday. A sense of... Helplessness and powerlessness, folks feeling like... I'm watching all this happen, but I can't do anything about it. Well, that moment has passed. This is the moment where we turn that anger into action. For the next five days, use that power to go vote and make sure everybody else you know votes. Let's win this thing and let's pave the path to a beautiful future. Well, Matthew Torres was there, and he is still in Atlanta, Georgia. Matthew, the Democrats have brought their big guns out for this fight. Barack Obama was there, now Kamala Harris. Are they confident? Well, Jonah, this is one of the reasons why Democrats may be feeling confident. We are just outside one of the polling locations here in Atlanta, where we have watched the lines stay consistently long for hours. It's hard to tell from our angle, but just around the building, that is where the line starts. But you can see where it wraps all the way around this library and onto that sidewalk. I spoke to one of the polling managers inside. She says that On Thursday, there were nearly 1,700 votes, and she is expecting today's results to far exceed Thursday's outcome. And so right now, there is a lot of enthusiasm, especially within the Democrat-leaning counties where there's been a surge in early voting. Across Georgia, there have been more than 2.5 million ballots cast, which already broke the record back in 2022 of 2.3. Million ballots cast and we're seeing that increase in early votes specifically in the black population as well as the youth vote. Now, the race that's being closely watched here in Georgia is the Senate race. We have Democrat incumbent Senator John Ossoff still leading in the polls against his Republican challenger, Mike Collins. Both of them are campaigning heavily leading into Election Day. Jonah, being here in Georgia, there is that famous lyric from music legend Ray Charles. Keeps Georgia on my mind. And after speaking with voters today and this week, that is certainly the case for them. Is it voting for the Democrat, or is it more making sure that President Donald Trump's policies aren't going to be in place? A bit of both. I like John Ossoff. I like what he stands for. I like what he's been doing. But at the same time, what the other side is doing is just wrong. What do you think as far as the future of Georgia? I mean, we can hope, certainly, that we see this blue wave kind of keep going and carry us through. We do like Ossoff, what he stands for. So hopefully we'll see more coming out of this, too. We're very optimistic across the Republican platform. We're so optimistic, we believe that every one of the Republican candidates will be re-elected or win their first initial seat. OK, rounding us out now, it's Arizona. In the 2020 presidential election, Arizona was at the center of a national series of vote-counting challenges led by supporters of Donald Trump. Well, this time, election officials say they're ready. John Hendren reports from Phoenix. Arizona has built a vote-counting fortress. In downtown Phoenix, the Maricopa County Tabulation and Election Center stands behind a gated parking lot, the workers behind protected glass. It is perhaps the most fortified vote-counting center in America. And they're building a newer, even more secure citadel of ballot security due to open next year. Many here fear the epic security is necessary. Democracy is at risk, and there are many threats. And there's people who are afraid to participate. And we need to make clear. To our society, that we are safe and we are free to participate. In 2020, this building was the epicenter of a national effort to overturn Donald Trump's election loss. When Democrat Joe Biden was declared the winner in Arizona, Trump alleged it was due to voter fraud here in Maricopa. Hundreds of pro-Trump protesters chanting Stop the Steal, some armed, surrounded the election center. After recounts and lawsuits, Biden's victory was upheld. What we did learn from 2020 was that we needed to ensure that the people and the things in this building were going to be safe. So we've added fencing outside of the building. We have more security. With polls showing Democrats once again making gains in Maricopa County, Trump has already accused election officials of voter fraud after 3,000 mail-in ballots were sent out six days early. A mistake, the county says. Maricopa is a very, very dishonest county. The county is battling those fears of voter fraud with TV ads. Results are stored on a secure server that's protected behind a locked glass. With election worker training. So we want to make sure that this is correct before we go any further. And with cameras recording it all. The Maricopa County Ballot Tabulation Center is live streamed 24-7 year round. This is step one of democracy in action in a swing county in the swing state of Arizona. Workers are taking early ballots out of their envelopes and they're grouped by different political parties. You can tell which one by their lanyards. Red for Republican, blue for Democrat, yellow for Independent. If anyone who loses an election tries to undermine confidence in them, here in Maricopa County at least, election managers say they're ready to answer with transparency. John Hendren, Al Jazeera, Phoenix. That was the Midterms Roundup here on Al Jazeera. Thanks for watching. You can catch up with all our Midterms content on YouTube and the website, aljazeera.com. And I'll hand you back now to our global headquarters in Doha. Bye-bye.