Hundreds of area Muslims participate in Eid al-Fitr in Brooklyn's Prospect Park in April 2024 in New York City. Republican lawmakers and candidates across the country have escalated their anti-Islam rhetoric in recent months as the midterm elections approach. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
Republican lawmakers and candidates across the country have escalated their anti-Islam rhetoric in recent months, a strategy aimed at energizing voters by claiming without evidence that Muslim culture and religious tenets threaten American political values.
Political observers say Republicans are seizing on anti-Islamic sentiment to gin up enthusiasm among their voters as they head into the 2026 midterm elections. It’s been a successful campaign strategy in the past.
Aggressive enforcement tactics have soured many Americans on hard-line immigration policies, once a winning issue for conservatives, and GOP victories on abortion and transgender rights have blunted the electoral power of those issues.
Instead, GOP candidates in some of the highest-profile political races in the country are putting Islam and the nebulous threat of Shariah at the center of their campaigns.
Shariah is a religious code derived from the Quran and the teachings of Prophet Muhammad that addresses moral, spiritual and daily life for Muslims. But the term has become shorthand, in some conservative circles, for anything having to do with Islam or with Islamic extremism.
Critics say conservative politicians have made Muslims a political bogeyman in their fight to hang onto power. Muslims say the rhetoric misrepresents their values and endangers their communities.
“I worry this will harm freedom, which is the very value some of these politicians are claiming to protect,” said Mustafa Akyol, a senior fellow at the Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank. Akyol is Muslim, and his research focuses on public policy and Islam.
“To think that American Muslims, which make 1% of the whole population, can enforce Shariah or force it on other people, that’s a very exaggerated claim.”
Up and down the ballot, Republicans have spent about $12 million since last year on ads that negatively mention Islam, Muslims or Shariah, according to AdImpact, an ad tracking firm.
I worry this will harm freedom, which is the very value some of these politicians are claiming to protect.
– Mustafa Akyol, senior fellow at the Cato Institute
Former Alabama Supreme Court Justice Jay Mitchell, now running for Alabama attorney general, recently released a campaign ad inviting supporters of “radical Islam” to “Allah Akbar your butt all the way back to the Middle East.”
In Georgia, Republican state Sen. Greg Dolezal, a candidate for lieutenant governor, released an AI-generated campaign ad last month depicting Muslim people invading a suburban neighborhood. In a post on X sharing the video, he described Muslims as “invaders who would rather pillage our generosity than assimilate.”
Officials in Alabama and Oklahoma have quashed efforts by Muslim groups to expand into larger facilities after those proposed developments attracted the attention and ire of conservative politicians. And Florida’s Republican-dominated legislature this year enacted laws allowing a handful of state officials to designate certain groups as domestic terrorist organizations.
At the federal level, incumbent Republican U.S. Sen. John Cornyn released a $1.6 million political ad earlier this year that claims “radical Islam is a bloodthirsty ideology” and says “Shariah law has no place in American courts or communities.”
There’s even a Sharia-Free America Caucus in Congress, launched last December by Republican Texas Reps. Keith Self and Chip Roy. It currently has more than 60 members spanning 25 states, according to Self. He called it “a noble cause to save Western Civilization and fight back against the threat of Sharia” in a January press release.
Akyol, of the Cato Institute, likens the furor to the American panic over communism in the 1950s that culminated in Wisconsin Republican Sen. Joseph McCarthy’s efforts to root out communist infiltration in the U.S. government and other spheres of power.
Those efforts “led to the crackdown on public freedoms in America like civil liberties, freedom of speech,” Akyol said. “Luckily that ended, but this seems like a McCarthyism 2.0 era where the issue now is not communism, but Islam.”
Years of legislation
Republicans say they’re responding to voter concerns and trying to preempt the possibility that religious or foreign political codes might creep into the U.S. legal system, jeopardizing free speech or due process.
Oklahoma state Sen. David Bullard is working with fellow Republican state legislators on a constitutional amendment that would bar courts and municipalities in Oklahoma from using any foreign law or religious code that would undermine the U.S. or Oklahoma constitutions. Similar efforts have been made this year in Arkansas, Missouri and other states.
Bullard said he’s heard from constituents who are concerned about a growing threat of other cultures “trying to forcefully usurp” American culture.
“Those are definitely Eastern ideas that don’t mix with Western culture, and the Constitution is created wholeheartedly on that Western culture concept,” he told Stateline.
He notes that his amendment doesn’t mention Shariah and does not single out Muslims.
Conservatives have been pushing similar state legislation for more than a decade. Since 2010, at least nine states have enacted laws aimed at preventing courts from enforcing foreign legal codes, including a 2014 constitutional amendment in Alabama.
When asked about examples of the kinds of instances he’s trying to prevent, Bullard cited a 2009 case in New Jersey in which a judge refused to give a woman a protective order after her husband repeatedly assaulted her, saying the husband was acting on his religious interpretation of Shariah. The ruling was overturned the following year.
“I think more and more people in Oklahoma are calling on us to protect them from that,” he said.
But even the most vocal proponents of anti-Shariah measures have struggled to explain how it could replace the American legal system or why more laws are needed to curb it. The establishment clause of the U.S. Constitution already prohibits the government from favoring one religion over another, or forcing adherence to a religious code.
Standing at a podium with a sign emblazoned with a line through the words “Sharia Law,” Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis conceded during a news conference earlier this month that there isn’t an immediate threat of Shariah becoming the basis for Florida law.
“Of course that won’t happen any time soon,” DeSantis said. “But the more that we’re able to do to protect against that, I think, is going to benefit Floridians for many, many years.”
Real-world worry
The Islamic Academy of Alabama has operated as a K-12 private school near Birmingham for nearly three decades. But in December, local leaders of a nearby suburb denied the school’s request to relocate to a larger facility there. Alabama U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville, a Republican who’s running for governor and who has railed against Islam on the Senate floor and social media, called for the school to move out of Alabama.
School officials declined Stateline’s interview request but said they remain focused on supporting the education, well-being and safety of their students and community. They’ve dropped their current relocation plans.
In Oklahoma, Republican Attorney General Gentner Drummond — who is running for governor — elevated a proposed expansion by the Islamic Society of Tulsa into a political issue when he announced an investigation into its funding. City leaders later denied the society’s application; Muslim leaders responded by hosting a community open house at their Tulsa mosque to connect with the community and promote a better understanding of their faith.
And in Texas, Attorney General Ken Paxton, who is challenging Cornyn for the GOP nomination in the state’s Senate race, sued over the proposed development of a large Muslim-centric community north of Dallas. He called it a “radical plot to destroy hundreds of acres of beautiful Texas land and line their own pockets” and claimed it was unlawfully reserved only for Muslims.
Although the group initially advertised that sales would be limited to certain people, representatives for the development have since said it is open to anyone.
Shariah shorthand
While some lawmakers have made a distinction in their rhetoric between extremism and the Islamic faith, others have made sweeping, derogatory claims that denigrate and stereotype all Muslims.
Tuberville of Alabama has said: “Islam is not a religion. It’s a cult.” U.S. Republican Rep. Andy Ogles of Tennessee has said, “Muslims don’t belong in American society.” U.S. Rep. Randy Fine, a Florida Republican who’s cosponsoring an anti-Shariah bill in Congress, posted on X in February: “If they force us to choose, the choice between dogs and Muslims is not a difficult one.”
While politicians have invoked fears of extremism in their public comments, Akyol said American Muslims are the ones who are most worried.
“If the people who govern your state define you like that, what may come next?” he said. “Maybe a legal step against you, or some fanatic who really believes in that can take his machine gun and attack you.”
Much of the Islamophobic messaging has gone unchecked by other conservatives, a marked departure from previous leadership. In 2001, a few days after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, then-President George W. Bush visited a mosque in Washington, D.C., and met with Muslim community leaders, declaring “Islam is peace” and condemning retaliation against Muslim Americans.
Earlier this month, DeSantis signed a Republican-sponsored bill into law that allows a few state officials to label certain groups “domestic terrorist organizations.” The new law also bans Florida courts from enforcing religious laws and bars state funds from going to schools affiliated with groups designated as terrorist organizations. It does not specifically mention a religion, but cites Shariah as an example of the kind of religious laws it covers.
“You can have these groups that may not be waging physical war-type jihad,” DeSantis said earlier this month. He warned groups could wage “stealth” or “financial” attacks.
“To me, that’s still jihad and we’ve got to stop it, and this bill provides the structure to be able to do it.”
Critics say such laws also have the potential to harm any organization that finds itself at odds with a current administration.
“That is the danger of these laws, because they are specifically designed to silence political dissent,” said Wilfredo Ruiz, communications director at the Florida chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a national Muslim civil rights group. CAIR was one of two groups labeled as terrorist organizations by an executive order DeSantis issued in December.
The Biden administration criticized CAIR for statements made by its leadership after the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks in Israel, but the group denies that it supports terrorism.
CAIR Florida sued over DeSantis’ order, arguing it violated the group’s First Amendment right to free speech. In March, a federal judge blocked the order.
Ruiz said his organization has the resources to continue challenging such laws in court. But he said he worries about smaller groups, including those that aren’t Muslim but might be at risk of being declared a “terrorist group” by whoever is currently in power in Florida.
“Having that executive power with the capacity to name you a terrorist organization before you have been even accused criminally, much less convicted, this is an openly unconstitutional proposal.”
Stateline reporter Anna Claire Vollers can be reached at [email protected].
This story was originally produced by Stateline, which is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network which includes NC Newsline, and is supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.
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