Arab American voters are moving away from the Republican Party. An Arab American Institute/Zogby International poll this month of Arab Americans in four battleground states showed that the party’s reversals with the community, which came to the fore in the 2004 elections, were intensifying. Arab American voters in Pennsylvania, Florida, Michigan and Ohio showed strong disfavor toward President Bush and Republicans: Bush received a 22 percent approval rating, below the mid- to upper-30s he has scored in national polls. Respondents said they would prefer a Democratic- to a Republican-controlled Congress by 57 percent to 26 percent. Until the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, Arab Americans traditionally were likelier to favor Republicans, but the war in Iraq and the Patriot Act reversed that trend. The poll also showed that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict ranked last of five issues influencing the community’s votes for Congress. Eighty percent of respondents ranked corruption as “very important,” while 68 percent ranked Israel-Palestinian Authority as “very important.”
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