The US presidential election comes to a close tonight, although it is possible that results will not be finalized for the next few days due to the rise of mail-in voting and the possibility of recounts in states where the margin between the two candidates is narrow.
Voters are also determining which establishment party will control the House of Representatives and the Senate, with 34 seats in the Senate up for election and 435 seats in the House. There are also notable ballot measures, which include ten states with ballot measures related to abortion rights.
Harris and Trump have employed last ditch attempts to appeal to voters in a race that is still proving to be extremely tight. A New York Times national polling average shows Harris with a miniscule 1% lead over Trump. According to the Times analysis, this is one of the closest races in US history.
Polls also indicate that Trump leads in more swing states than Harris. Due to the electoral college, it is these key swing states, which are Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, that could go either to the Republican or Democratic parties, that will actually decide the outcome of the election.
The US is a two party system—with the establishment Republican and Democratic parties controlling every single seat in both the House and Senate save four. But during Biden’s current presidential administration, people in the US have experienced crisis after crisis, from skyrocketing costs to a genocidal war that the US is funding, that could generate enough outrage to shake up the two-party duopoly.
According to Gallup, 63% of US adults agree that both major establishment parties are doing such “such a poor job” of representing the people of the US that “a third major party is needed.” This represents the latest data indicating a steady increase since 2003 in support for a third option, support for which has gone up sharply since the 2022 election. On the other hand, support for the notion that the Democrats and Republicans “do an adequate job” of representing the people has sharply dropped since 2022.
A question on the minds of many is how the year-long movement for Palestine will shape the election, particularly for Arab and Muslim American voters who reside in swing states such as Michigan. Some organizations in the Palestine solidarity movement, including Abandon Harris, have openly supported third party candidate Jill Stein. It is only by looking to third party candidates, which include Stein as well as Claudia De la Cruz, Cornel West, and Chase Oliver, will one find any opposition to the unending flow of US weapons to aid Israel in committing genocide. Despite the fact that the majority of people in the US oppose such aid, without which it would not be possible for Israel to carry out its war in Gaza, both Trump and Harris promise to continue this policy.
Democratic Party operatives seem well aware that their support for genocide could hemorrhage votes, and in response have launched attacks that have gotten third party candidates off the ballot in key swing states.
The third party threat to a Democratic victory is not entirely unfounded. A poll by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) indicates that 42.3% of Muslim voters prefer Stein, while only 41% prefer Harris. Analysis has indicated that in the 2016 election, when Stein also ran, Democratic Party nominee Hillary Clinton could have won if every Stein voter in the states of Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania voted for Clinton instead.
With around 206,000 registered Muslim voters in the key swing state of Michigan, who voted overwhelmingly for Biden in 2020, a dramatic dip in the Muslim voters that show up for Harris in this state could impact her chances of winning the election.
Top Democrats have utilized direct appeals to these communities in an attempt to convince them to vote Harris. “Maybe you’re Muslim-American or Jewish-American and you are heartbroken and furious about the ongoing bloodshed in the Middle East and worried about the rise of antisemitism,” said former President Barack Obama at a recent Harris campaign rally. “Why would you place your faith in somebody who instituted a so-called Muslim ban? Who sat down for pleasantries with Holocaust deniers, who said that there were very fine people on both sides of a white supremacist rally?”
Leading groups in the Palestine solidarity movement have responded directly to such statements.
“In response to this accusation, we remind Democrats who is to blame if Donald Trump is declared winner of the presidential election. It is the Biden-Harris administration and the Democratic establishment, not our communities, who will be to blame if Trump wins,” said the Palestinian Youth Movement in a statement.
“It is the Biden-Harris administration who chose to continue sending billions of dollars in weapons to slaughter our people. It is Joe Biden, Kamala Harris and the Democratic Party, not our communities, who chose to ignore the public polls which showed that the masses across this country oppose this genocide.”
Lebanese-American Journalist Rania Khalek spoke to Arab American voters in Dearborn, Michigan, ahead of the election. Many of these voters were also Lebanese, and had been personally impacted by Israeli aggression in Lebanon.
“If Kamala Harris loses, that sends a strong message that she did not do enough to earn the pro-peace voters’ votes,” said Lebanese-American Micho Assi, who at the time of her interview was not sure who she would end up voting for. “And that’s on her.”
Multiple third party candidates, which include leftist scholar Cornel West as well as Stein and De la Cruz, have issued agreements with the goal of maximizing the impacts of their campaigns—a powerful step towards building an alternative to the two-party system.
