According to the Council of Arab Islamic Relations (CAIR), about 70 percent of American Muslims voted for George W. Bush in 2000. Twelve years later, only 4 percent voted for Mitt Romney.
Those numbers underscore just how badly the Republican Party has estranged itself from what one of its natural constituencies. The industrious, fiscally conservative, family-oriented values of American conservatism should give the GOP a lot of in common with religious Muslims, but after the war on terror and more than a decade of having their faith demonized, not too many Muslims have decided to remain in the party of Bush. Donald Trump's call for a ban on Muslim immigration may have put an exclamation point on the trend, but the Muslim exodus from the GOP started a lot earlier than that.
VICE tracked down a handful of Muslims who once identified as Republican but have leaned Democratic in recent elections. Here's what they had to say about why they left the party—or why they feel the party left them.
Sarah Cochran
VICE: What's your background like?
Sarah Cochran: I was born and raised in the Kuwait by expat parents from India. As a child, I always looked forward to moving to America because it was the place I could finally belong. I was 18 when I arrived—four days before Saddam invaded. I ended up staying here because I couldn't go back, and there weren't any universities in Kuwait anyway. My dad ended up losing everything because of the invasion, so I worked a graveyard shift and put myself through community college.
After that I had an arranged marriage and moved to Texas with my new husband, and spent about ten years sitting at home and having kids. But I had a change of heart, got divorced, and applied to Georgetown's master's program in conflict resolution. As I was graduating I got a job on Rick Snyder, but on a national level I don't think they're ever going to be able to come out of the hole that Donald Trump has dug for them. Right now for Arabs and Muslims and minorities, to support the Republican Party is like cockroaches supporting Raid.
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