Ambitions, hopes, dreams, aspirations, boys playing girls’ sports, and reparations

Vice President Kamala Harris has so over-used her talking points about ‘growing up in a middle class family’ and about her ‘love of the American people and our ‘hopes, dreams, ambitions, and aspirations,’ that they have become punch lines to jokes.

That’s not a good macro-political sign for her presidential campaign. And neither are some of the numbers emerging from the smaller demographics she must have to win. One of those smaller units of the American electorate are the Arab Americans generally, and in Michigan specifically, and the news isn’t great for Team Harris there either. 

In early October, the Arab American Institute released its poll of Arab Americans on the upcoming presidential election. The ‘top line’ takeaway was very surprising: ‘Trump and Harris [are] in a virtual tie with Arab American voters (42-41%), with 12% supporting third-party candidates.’

I asked former President Trump why he was doing this well with this demographic, especially at the same time as his support among Jewish Americans is increasing?

Because I want to see everything get worked out,’ he replied. ‘I want peace,’ he continued. ‘I don’t want to see people killed. I want peace, and they [Arab Americans] know that. And the Jewish people know that. And both sides like it, and know that I can get peace.’

That’s a good answer, and perhaps it does account for a good chunk of some Arab Americans voting Trump, but the same poll revealed that when ‘asked to rank their top issues, the following were the top three for Arab American voters: jobs and the economy (39%), Gaza (26%) and gun violence (21%).’ 

Turns out that this demographic cares the most about the same issue the entire electorate cares the most about: The economy. There was no cross-tab provided on how the 39% break down between Trump and Harris, but my guess is that, as with the electorate as a whole, Arab Americans who are worried about inflation and their jobs break for Trump.

Then there are the issues that very few pollsters ask about and which this poll didn’t. The first is ‘transgender rights’ which can mean a lot of things to different people. But to at least many millions of voters it means this: Boys who identify as girls playing in girls’ sports and using girls’ locker rooms.

The second issue not often polled is ‘reparations.’ This issue was introduced into the campaign just this week when Vice President Harris was asked about reparations by podcaster ‘Charlamagne tha God’ and the Democrat nominee declared the issue ‘needed to be studied.’ 

‘Americans view the prospect of reparations mostly negatively,’ according to a 2021 Pew Research Study. ‘Three-in-ten U.S. adults say descendants of people enslaved in the U.S. should be repaid in some way, such as given land or money,’ Pew reported. 77% of Black Americans support reparations while only 39% of Hispanic Americans and 33% of Asian Americans do. (Arab Americans were not broken out in the polling.)

What about the first issue mentioned above? A super-majority of all Americans—69% according to Gallup—believe that ‘transgender athletes should only be allowed to compete on sports teams that conform with their birth gender.’ But the Biden-Harris Administration has proposed new Title IX rules that have been widely viewed as mandating the right of transgender athletes to compete in the sports reserved for the biological category they identify with. To most voters that probably means ‘boys who identify as girls playing girls sports.’ 

While Harris has not spoken to this specific issue, she has adopted the very controversial position of taxpayer payment for prison inmates seeking to transition from one sex to another. (The Trump campaign has made Harris’s on-the-record support for these taxpayer payments part of their ad rotation.) 

It is a guess, but a safe one, that conservative family cultures of the sort typical for Arab Americans—Muslim, Christian or agnostic—largely reject both reparations for Blacks and the idea of biological boys playing in girls’ sports. 

That’s an informed guess because the Arab American Institute polling demonstrated that Arab Americans are in fact like most Americans on what matters most. Don’t be surprised when the post-election exit polling reveals that Arab Americans ended up supporting Trump in roughly the same percentage as all Americans and that they viewed Vice President Harris as simply too radical to take a chance on. 

Hugh Hewitt is host of ‘The Hugh Hewitt Show,’ heard weekday mornings 6am to 9am ET on the Salem Radio Network, and simulcast on Salem News Channel. Hugh wakes up America on over 400 affiliates nationwide, and on all the streaming platforms where SNC can be seen. He is a frequent guest on the Fox News Channel’s news roundtable hosted by Bret Baier weekdays at 6pm ET. A son of Ohio and a graduate of Harvard College and the University of Michigan Law School, Hewitt has been a Professor of Law at Chapman University’s Fowler School of Law since 1996 where he teaches Constitutional Law. Hewitt launched his eponymous radio show from Los Angeles in 1990.  Hewitt has frequently appeared on every major national news television network, hosted television shows for PBS and MSNBC, written for every major American paper, has authored a dozen books and moderated a score of Republican candidate debates, most recently the November 2023 Republican presidential debate in Miami and four Republican presidential debates in the 2015-16 cycle. Hewitt focuses his radio show and his column on the Constitution, national security, American politics and the Cleveland Browns and Guardians. Hewitt has interviewed tens of thousands of guests from Democrats Hillary Clinton and John Kerry to Republican Presidents George W. Bush and Donald Trump over his 40 years in broadcast, and this column previews the lead story that will drive his radio/ TV show today.