The pressure group is targeting nine key swing states, with the aim of punishing Biden for his stance on the Israel-Hamas war
A national Muslim pressure group calling itself “Abandon Biden” is operating in nine key swing states to prevent Biden winning this year’s presidential election. The group’s leaders say they want to punish Biden for his stance on the Israel-Hamas conflict.
Minneapolis newspaper The Star Tribune reported on the group and its efforts to thwart Biden’s reelection, which are targeted at the Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, Minnesota, North Carolina, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
According to the group’s website:
“The Abandon Biden Campaign seeks to empower people of conscience to leverage their vote for the US presidency and, consequently, effect moral change in the United States and around the world. The campaign seeks to unite and mobilize all people of conscience to forge a national movement built around grassroots organizing, political lobbying, public advocacy, and voter mobilization to effectively transform people of conscience resisting genocide as a powerful voting block that cannot be ignored.”
One of the movement’s leaders is Abdel Salam, 48, a professor of human rights at the University of Minnesota. He left his academic job last month to head the movement.
Salam told The Tribune that “he and other Abandon Biden leaders are evaluating third-party candidates and plan to make an endorsement this summer.
Salam said that, if Trump wins, “the big gift that would come out of punishing the president is that an entire party… becomes a pro-Palestinian party against the occupation and will begin to look for equity much more aggressively than we have in the past.”
Other pressure groups such as The Listen to Michigan campaign have noted the potential threat to Biden if progressives, especially Muslims, Arab-Americans and young voters, stay home in November.
A recent New York Times / Siena College poll suggests that Trump has made massive gains among Muslim and Arab-American voters in swing states. According to the poll, Trump had support from 57% of these voters, as opposed to Biden’s 25%.
