Who do Muslim Americans vote for in American elections?

 Shifting patterns in Muslim voting

Over the past 20 years, Muslim Americans’ party preferences have shifted markedly. Prior to the terrorist attacks of September 11 2001, an estimated 80% of non-African-American Muslims were Republican voters, while the majority of African-American Muslims voted for the Democratic candidate Al Gore.

This voting pattern changed in the post-September 11 era, when George W. Bush’s administration and the Republican Party spearheaded the “war on terror”.

The rhetoric of the war on terror, intrusive surveillance of Muslims under the Patriot Act and military campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq have created a noticeable anti-Muslim atmosphere in the US. Muslims perceived the war on terror to be a war on Islam and Muslims. As a consequence, the Muslim American vote for Bush plummeted to a mere 7% in the 2004 elections.

A significant shift by Muslim voters to the Democrats culminated in the support for Barack Obama in the 2008 elections. The same trend continued with Muslims overwhelmingly voting for Democrats in the 2016 elections, with 82% of votes going to Hillary Clinton. By 2018, Muslim support for the Republican Party was only 10%.

The March 2020 ISPU poll, however, found Muslim American voter support for Trump had increased to 30%, as Muslim voters believed Trump to be a good manager of the economy and unwilling to take part in Middle East wars.

Interestingly, the same ISPU poll showed 31% of white Muslims supported Trump as opposed to 8% of Black and Arab Muslims and 6% of Asian Muslims.

<source: https://theconversation.com/who-will-muslim-americans-vote-for-in-the-us-elections-146854>

At this point, the majority of Muslims in the United States seem to support the Democratic Party. 

But the tendency to vote is variable, not unchanging.