Data sources
ISPU American Muslim Poll 2025 (n=800, NORC)
Change Research 2024 Swing State Survey
CAIR 2024 Muslim Voter Survey (n=2,500+)
Yaqeen Institute MAAS 2024
The six issues — what to look for
Palestine & Gaza
Ceasefire, military aid, genocide recognition — the defining issue for Muslim voters this cycle
Why it matters here: Every member of Congress votes on foreign aid packages that include U.S. military assistance to Israel. IL-9, IL-8, IL-2, and the U.S. Senate seat are all federal races where the winner will cast those votes for up to six years. 78% of Muslim third-party voters in 2024 named Gaza their #1 reason — making this the single most powerful issue driving community disengagement from the Democratic Party.
Questions to ask candidates
- Do you support a permanent ceasefire and an end to U.S. military aid to Israel?
- Do you recognize Israel's actions in Gaza as genocide?
- Will you support conditioning or ending military aid to Israel?
- Have you accepted — or will you refuse — donations from AIPAC or its affiliated PACs?
- Will you support Palestinian statehood at the United Nations?
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Watch for: Candidates who say they "support a two-state solution" without committing to a ceasefire or opposing military aid are using diplomatic language to avoid taking a position. Ask for specifics on aid conditionality.
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Illinois connection: IL-9 (North Side Chicago, Skokie, Niles, Evanston) has two Palestinian-American and Muslim-American candidates running. AIPAC-aligned groups have spent over $1.17M in ads in this race alone. The district's large Muslim and Arab communities make organized turnout especially consequential.
Economy & Cost of Living
Wages, housing, corporate power — the #1 issue by volume across all voter groups
Why it matters here: Despite higher education rates, American Muslims earn less than comparable non-Muslim groups — a disparity driven partly by hiring discrimination and post-9/11 economic marginalization. Muslim Americans are also disproportionately represented in small business ownership, making them sensitive to healthcare costs, inflation, and corporate consolidation. For immigrant Muslim families, economic security is inseparable from immigration status stability.
Questions to ask candidates
- Do you support Medicare for All or universal healthcare coverage?
- Do you accept corporate PAC money? If not, how are you funding your campaign?
- What is your position on housing affordability and tenant protections in Illinois?
- Do you support raising the federal minimum wage and indexing it to inflation?
- How do you plan to address corporate consolidation and price-fixing in essential goods?
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Watch for: Candidates who take corporate PAC money while claiming to fight for working families. Check FEC filings — AIPAC-linked donors often give to the same candidates who receive Wall Street and pharmaceutical industry contributions.
Healthcare
Access, affordability, and the fight for universal coverage
Why it matters here: Muslim Americans — particularly immigrant and working-class families — face significant barriers to healthcare access. Mental health care access is also a pressing issue: ISPU's 2025 poll found a sharp rise in stress, anxiety, and trauma in the Muslim community tied to the Gaza crisis, Islamophobia, and economic precarity. Meanwhile, Trump's cuts to Medicaid and the ACA directly threaten millions of Muslim families.
Questions to ask candidates
- Do you support Medicare for All? If not, what's your path to universal coverage?
- Will you oppose cuts to Medicaid, SNAP, and the ACA?
- How do you plan to address the mental health crisis, particularly in communities facing discrimination and trauma?
- Do you support capping insulin and prescription drug prices?
Immigration & ICE
Raids in Muslim neighborhoods, family separation, and the fight for humane policy
Why it matters here: ICE raids in Evanston, Skokie, and Niles in late October 2025 hit Muslim and immigrant communities in IL-9's own territory during the campaign. Multiple IL-8 candidates — Junaid Ahmed and Neil Khot — have made ICE abolition central to their campaigns. For Muslim American families, immigration is not abstract: it affects parents, siblings, and community members with precarious status.
Questions to ask candidates
- Do you support abolishing ICE and replacing it with a humane, due-process-based system?
- Will you oppose funding for mass deportation operations and detention centers?
- Do you support a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, including DACA recipients?
- Will you push back on the use of the Alien Enemies Act and other extra-legal deportation mechanisms?
- How will you protect immigrant communities from surveillance and targeting based on religion or national origin?
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Illinois connection: The northern suburbs of IL-9 and the northwest suburbs of IL-8 have significant South Asian and Arab Muslim immigrant populations. ICE operations in these communities during the campaign season elevated this issue from national to viscerally local.
Anti-Islamophobia & Civil Rights
Religious freedom, surveillance, hate crimes, and the right to speak on Palestine
Why it matters here: Islamophobia isn't just social — it's a policy issue. The Muslim ban set a precedent for religion-based discrimination in federal law. Student visa revocations and campus crackdowns on pro-Palestine speech affected Muslim students directly. Illinois state Rep. Jonathan Carroll's anti-Muslim social media posts targeted candidates in this very primary. The right to boycott Israel (BDS) is a First Amendment issue that several Illinois candidates have been pressured on.
Questions to ask candidates
- Will you co-sponsor legislation to counter anti-Muslim discrimination and hate crimes?
- Do you support the right to boycott — including BDS — as protected First Amendment activity?
- Will you oppose federal surveillance programs targeting Muslim communities (e.g., CVE, FBI mapping)?
- How will you respond if the administration targets Muslim student visa holders or revokes citizenship?
- Do you commit to speaking out against anti-Muslim rhetoric from fellow party members?
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Watch for: Candidates who condemn anti-Muslim bigotry in the abstract but support anti-BDS legislation or stay silent when Muslim candidates are smeared. In IL-9, the AIPAC-aligned attacks on candidates with Palestinian ties have a direct Islamophobic dimension.
Climate & Environmental Justice
A moral issue for younger Muslims — and a differentiator between progressive and centrist candidates
Why it matters here: Climate justice is increasingly framed through an Islamic lens — stewardship of the earth (khalifa) as a religious obligation. Younger Muslim voters, particularly the Gen Z candidates running in IL-9, have made climate a central part of their platforms. Internationally, climate change disproportionately impacts Muslim-majority countries in the Global South — making it a foreign policy and justice issue as much as an environmental one.
Questions to ask candidates
- Do you support the Green New Deal or equivalent aggressive decarbonization legislation?
- Will you oppose new fossil fuel infrastructure and reject fossil fuel industry donations?
- How will you address environmental justice for communities of color disproportionately affected by pollution?
- What is your position on the U.S.'s international climate obligations and the Paris Agreement?
Why these issues
Muslim voters
35%
named Gaza a top voting priority
in the 2024 election · ISPU 2025
General public
4%
named Gaza a top voting priority
in the 2024 election · ISPU 2025
Top policy priorities when choosing a candidate
Muslim voters
General public
Economy & Jobs
Gaza / Palestine 9× gap
Healthcare
Immigration
Fighting Islamophobia
Climate
ISPU American Muslim Poll 2025, fielded April–May 2025 by NORC at the University of Chicago (n=800 Muslim voters). General public figures from the same study. Islamophobia and climate figures estimated from CAIR and Yaqeen MAAS data where ISPU did not publish specific %.
63%
of Muslims reported religious discrimination in the past year — vs. ~25% of other groups (ISPU 2025)
90%
say Middle East foreign policy is "very important" to them personally — the highest of any issue (Yaqeen MAAS 2024)
47%
of Muslim families with school-age children reported their child faced religious bullying — vs. 23% of the general public (ISPU 2025)