Wassim “Dave” Abdallah was victorious in his bid for one of three available city council seats. 

Abdallah was the 3rd highest vote-getter in the race. He only trailed behind incumbent Lisa Hicks-Clayton and newcomer Ray Muscat.

Hicks came in first place with 4,020 votes, while Muscat brought in 3,294 votes. Abdallah nabbed 2,394 votes.

In Fourth place was Troy Brown, only trailing Abdallah by 90 votes.

 Abdallah celebrated his win at Oyaki Sushi, located on Ford Rd., where campaign volunteers gathered after a long day the polls.

“You helped give me the energy to get through this,” Abdallah told a cheering crowd. “I’m going to be a candidate for all of the city of Dearborn Heights. I’m going to prove to you guys that you made a great decision.”

While Arab American voters have demonstrated their power in numbers at the polls in recent years in the neighboring city of Dearborn,  Abdallah’s victory in Dearborn Heights sets a new precedent for the Arab American community. 

Arab American candidates have long had a history of losing at the polls, citing a lack of turnout from Arab American voters in Dearborn Heights. 

But that pattern seems to have come to an end this year. Many of Abdallah’s campaign volunteers said that the community pulled through at the polls. 

Abdallah’s campaign was equipped with an army of volunteers stationed across all of the city’s 18 precincts.

Ali Abdallah, his brother, who was campaigning at the Canfield Community Center on Beech Daly, said that there was larger traffic at the precincts in northern Dearborn Heights. 

“We had very positive feedback from the people who were coming out to vote,” said Ali Abdallah. “There’s been a lot of support for my brother Dave, especially at the locations where it’s predominantly Arab Americans. We’ve been very impressed with the turnout.” 

Ali noted that there were some issues amongst Arab American residents; many of them had come to the polls to vote only to find out that they weren’t registered.

“We’ve noticed a lot of people weren’t even registered,” Ali said. “ If people would get people registered and we could get at least three or four people per household to vote, then we would win every poll in every election.”

Hassan Bazzi, President of the Dearborn Heights Community Organization, said Abdallah’s victory forecasts a bright future for the community.

“This means we exist and we exist very proudly,” Bazzi said. “This is history. After trying so many times to push the community to go out and vote, finally we’ve gotten somewhere.”

Abdallah’s campaign consisted of over 100 volunteers on Election Day. A handful of them took shifts campaigning for Abdallah across the city’s 18 precincts.

“I’ve been out since 7:30 in the morning,” said Sam Makki, a campaign volunteer who spent the entire day at Kinloch Elementary School. “The traffic was good in general. A lot of people came to support Dave.” 

Volunteers said that there was a slow turn out in the first half of the day. However, as the day drew to a close, traffic appeared to have picked up.

Abdallah’s campaign led a strong voter drive initiative up until the polls had officially closed on Tuesday. Many volunteers knocked on doors to remind residents to vote. This strategy was mainly concentrated in areas with a large population of Arab Americans.

His campaign also held a phone bank at the HYPE Recreation Center for volunteers to call households and remind residents to vote before the polls had closed. Abdallah said over 6,000 calls were made on Election Day.

Abdallah also spent a good portion of the day campaigning in the South section of Dearborn Heights, which includes a significantly smaller population of Arab American residents.

Prior to the results, Abdallah told The Arab American News that residents at the south-end polls embraced him. He had already spent months door-to-door knocking in those neighborhoods.  

Abdallah led an aggressive campaign for his city council bid. In the months leading up to Election Day, his campaign included billboards, advertisements in various newspapers, including The Arab American News, radio and TV interviews, phone calls to residential homes and door to door knocking.

After the results came in, it became clear that both a strong turnout from the Arab American community and some backing from the south-end community of Dearborn Heights was essential in landing him the victory. 

Name recognition may have also helped Abdallah at the polls. He has long been a leading real estate agent for Century 21. He will continue to work out of the Curran & Christie office located on Ford Road, while multi-tasking his new position on the city council.

Two Arab Americans now hold positions on Dearborn Heights’ city council. Abdallah will join Councilman Tom Berry for two years before his term is up in 2017.