According to a new poll released Wednesday by the Arab American Institute, the former President Donald Trump is the favored candidate for president among registered Arab American voters, with 42 percent to Vice President Kamala Harris’s 41 percent. Among those polled who say they are very likely to vote, his lead expands to 46 percent to Harris’s 42 percent. Similarly, a plurality of 46 percent favor Republicans for control of the next Congress, compared to 43 percent who prefer a Democrat-controlled Congress in 2025.

The new poll offers a sharp contrast to 2020, when the same organization reported that 59 percent of Arab Americans planned to vote for the Democrat Joe Biden and only 35 percent intended to vote for Trump.

The shift appears to be motivated by dissatisfaction with the Biden administration’s handling of both the economy and the war in Gaza, which the poll reports are the top two issues for Arab American voters. In comparison, the number one issue for Arab Americans in 2020 was “race relations in the U.S. today.”

Changes in the political loyalties of the Arab-American voting bloc could have implications for the presidential election in Michigan, a state with a significant population of Arab-speakers concentrated in the suburbs of Detroit.