By Darren Lyn

HOUSTON, United States (AA) - The US Muslim vote could play a major factor in the 2024 presidential election, according to a poll released Friday by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization.

Topping the list of candidates in the new CAIR poll is not Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, or former President Donald Trump, the Republican contender. Rather, Green Party nominee Jill Stein has garnered a majority of the Muslim vote.

Stein leads with 42% of the Muslim vote versus Harris at 41% and Trump at 10%. With a margin of error of +/- 2.5 percentage points, however, that puts Stein in a dead heat with Harris, just as the two were in CAIR's August survey when Harris had a slight lead with 29.4% of the Muslim vote to Stein's 29.1%. Support for Trump dropped slightly from August, where the former president totaled 11.2%.

The increase in numbers for Harris and Stein in the October poll could be that 16.5% of Muslim voters were undecided during the August poll versus just 0.9% in the current one, which was taken Oct. 30 - Oct. 31, with results tallied from 1,449 verified Muslim voters.

"Since CAIR’s last poll in late August, both Dr. Jill Stein and Vice President Harris have consolidated support among American Muslim voters and remain nearly tied at 42 percent and 41 percent while former president Donald Trump’s support remains static (at) 10 percent," CAIR Government Affairs Director Robert S. McCaw said in a statement.

"The significant drop in support for major presidential candidates compared to 2020 and 2016 is almost certainly a result of community concerns regarding the genocide in Gaza," he said. "We encourage all presidential candidates to address the concerns of Muslim voters in these final days of the campaign, and we encourage all American Muslim voters to turn out regardless of who they support."

Stein has voiced her position on the war in the Gaza Strip very clearly to the Muslim community by opposing the genocide of Palestinians by Israeli strikes which have killed more than 43,000 since the onslaught erupted Oct. 7, 2023. The strikes began after the Palestinian resistance group, Hamas, conducted a cross-border attack in Israel killing nearly 1,200 people, which prompted immediate retaliation by Israeli forces that has continued for more than a year.

In an October interview with Anadolu, the CEO of CAIR’s chapter in the US state of California, Hussam Ayloush, said Trump is seen as being "pro-Israel" with clear "anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim policies," whereas Harris is looked at as the candidate sitting on the fence by "sympathizing with Palestinians" yet "remaining silent" on condemning Israel for its attacks against Gaza.

There are between 2.5 to 3.5 million Muslims in the US and many of those registered voters live in the key swing states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Those voters could determine the outcome of the election.

"We do believe that those Muslim voters who reside in the swing states will have a major role in determining the election," said Ayloush.

Michigan is arguably the most important swing state for the candidates when it comes to Muslim voters, as it has one of the largest Muslim populations in the US with the majority, nearly 200,000, concentrated in the Detroit suburb of Livonia. So, it is no surprise that the candidates, especially Trump and Harris, are stumping hard in Michigan in the days leading up to the Nov. 5 election.

On Friday, Trump made campaign stops in two other Detroit suburbs, Warren and Dearborn, which is the largest Arab-majority city in the US with nearly half of the 110,000 residents there being Arab American. He urged all of his supporters to head to the polls.

"In-person voting in Michigan ends on Sunday, and if you're not gonna make that, you gotta get there on Tuesday," said Trump, who plans to hold his final rally in Grand Rapids, about 150 miles (241 kilometers) west of Detroit. Trump held his final rally in that city when he won the White House in 2016, beating Hillary Clinton by just under 11,000 votes. He then lost to President Joe Biden in Michigan during the 2020 election by nearly 155,000 votes.

Harris also has campaign rallies in Michigan on Sunday in Detroit, Pontiac and East Lansing to try and shore up a victory in that state to mirror Biden's in 2020.

It will be the 16th time the vice president has visited the state this year, with a dozen of the visits coming after she became the Democratic nominee, showing just how important is the swing state.

The Detroit Free Press newspaper showed Harris leading Trump by 3% in its final poll by 48% to 45%, with Stein and Robert Kennedy, Jr., who dropped out of the race, each receiving 3% of the vote. The polling tracker 538, which takes the average of all the major US presidential polls, has Harris leading by just 1% -- 48% to 47%. But with the margin of error, both candidates are virtually tied in Michigan.

Harris will close out her campaign Sunday in another key battleground state, Pennsylvania, where she is currently running neck-and-neck with Trump. In addition to the nearly 150,000 Muslims who live in that state, another key demographic in Pennsylvania is Jewish voters, who account for 3.3% of the population of 300,000 to 400,000, which is higher than the total percentage of the Jewish population in the US.

"Pennsylvania is the Jewish version of what Michigan is considered to be for the Muslim vote," University of Houston political science professor Asher Lubotzky, told Anadolu in October.

Just like Jewish voters may decide the vote in a wire-to-wire finish in Pennsylvania, Muslim voters may also do the same in Michigan, which CAIR said shows the importance of the Muslim voter base in the US.

"This final national poll of American Muslim voters confirms that our community members are deeply engaged in the 2024 election, with 95 percent saying they plan to turn out to vote," CAIR National Executive Director Nihad Awad said in a statement. "The poll also confirms that opposition to U.S. support for the war on Gaza continues to play a major role in influencing Muslim voter preferences."

"Our message for American Muslims is simple: regardless of who you plan to support, it is essential that you turn out to vote," said Awad. "Do not sit on the sidelines. Make your voices heard and show the strength of our community in states across our nation."