Did Trump's Pakistan pivot cost him support in the US midterms?

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Did Trump's Pakistan pivot cost him support in the US midterms? Submitted by Ali Jaswal on Sun, 11/15/2026 - 11:01 Pakistani Americans who backed Trump in 2024 say they switched…

Several Pakistani Americans who helped Donald Trump return to the White House in 2024 have told Middle East Eye that the diaspora community turned against him in last week's midterm elections after the US president "abandoned" his promise to secure the release of Pakistan's imprisoned former Prime Minister Imran Khan.

They said their disillusionment deepened as Trump cultivated a close relationship with Pakistan's powerful army chief, Field Marshal Asim Munir, whom he has repeatedly called his "favourite field marshal".

While the US does not release official demographic breakdowns of voting patterns, an estimated 680,000 people of Pakistani origin lived in the country in 2023, according to the Pew Research Center.

Although they represent a relatively small share of the electorate, concentrated communities in politically competitive states such as Michigan and Pennsylvania give them potentially significant influence.

Syed Ali, a corporate finance professional living in Virginia's Eighth Congressional District, told MEE that he threw his support behind Democratic candidates and "voted for anybody that was non-Republican".

Ali, who voted for Republican candidates in 2024, said that before Trump entered office, there was a feeling of hope that the US president "was going to do something to restore democracy in Pakistan and [call] for the release of Imran Khan".

He suggested that the US deliberately supported the imprisonment of Khan, as this helped them get rid of a prominent voice on Palestine and Iran.

"Khan would have created a ruckus with whatever was happening with the genocide, and of course he would have played a key role in the Iran war. He was the loudest voice for Palestine, so purposely he was kept in jail," Ali added.

Khan's imprisonment has become a rallying point for much of the Pakistani diaspora in the US.

Opening of the article, excerpted from Middle East Eye. To read the rest, open the article on the publisher's site.