Community Advisory: CAIR Releases Top 12 Questions for Muslim Voters to Ask Candidates Running in 2026 Midterm Election

New Muslims.Vote resource encourages voters to directly question candidates on civil rights, religious freedom, Gaza, war, immigration, the economy, education, and other issues impacting American Muslim communities

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, today released its “Top 12 Questions to Ask Candidates Running for the 2026 Midterm Election,” a nonpartisan resource designed to empower American Muslim voters to directly engage candidates running for office and learn where they stand on issues impacting their families and communities.

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The resource is part of CAIR’s nationwide Muslims.Vote initiative and encourages Muslim voters to go beyond campaign advertisements, slogans, and party labels by asking candidates clear policy questions and requesting clear answers.

CAIR has long encouraged Muslim voters to question candidates at town halls, candidate forums, community events, public and private meetings, and through written correspondence. CAIR’s previous candidate-question resources have addressed religious freedom, civil rights, education, immigration, community safety, voting rights, the right to boycott, and U.S. policy toward Palestine.

CAIR’s Top 12 Questions to Ask Candidates

CAIR is encouraging Muslim voters and community organizations to ask candidates questions addressing:

1. Anti-Muslim Hate: What concrete actions will you take to combat anti-Muslim discrimination and policies that target American Muslims because of their faith?
2. Religious Freedom: Will you oppose legislation or government policies that single out Islam, Islamic practices, or Muslim institutions for discriminatory treatment?
3. Human Rights: Will you oppose legislation that would provide funding or weapons to foreign governments that engage in violations of human rights and international law, including weapons transfers to the Israeli government?
4. Unauthorized Wars: Will you oppose unauthorized U.S. military action overseas, including the war in Iran, and defend Congress’s constitutional authority over decisions of war and peace?
5. U.S.-Israel Military and Intelligence Integration: Will you oppose efforts to further integrate U.S. military, intelligence, surveillance, technology, and defense infrastructure with the Israeli government?
6. Free Speech: Will you protect Americans’ First Amendment right to boycott, and will you oppose government efforts to penalize individuals or organizations for participating in political boycotts, including boycotts related to Israel?
7. Immigration and Due Process: Will you support immigration policies that protect due process, keep families together, reject religious or national-origin discrimination, and ensure immigrants are treated with dignity?
8. Civil Rights and Government Surveillance: What steps will you take to protect Americans, including Muslim Americans, from discriminatory surveillance, profiling, watchlisting, and other government practices that undermine constitutional rights?
9. Education and Activism: Will you protect students’ rights to peacefully advocate, protest, organize, and express political viewpoints without discriminatory censorship or punishment?
10. Economic Justice and Cost of Living: What policies will you support to address the rising cost of housing, food, healthcare, childcare, and other necessities affecting working families?
11. Equal Protection and Religious Accommodation: Will you support equal treatment and reasonable religious accommodations for Muslim students, workers, service members, prisoners, and others, including accommodations involving prayer, religious clothing, halal meals, Ramadan, and Eid?
12. Voting Rights and Political Participation: What will you do to protect voting access, oppose voter suppression, and ensure all eligible Americans can freely participate in our democracy?

**Note: Some of these questions are for Federal Candidates only. 

Foreign policy and war, the economy and cost of living, and civil rights, discrimination and Islamophobia ranked as the top three issue areas among respondents to a CAIR and CAIR Action survey of Muslim voters released earlier this year.

Where Should Muslim Voters Ask These Questions?

CAIR encourages community members to take these questions directly to candidates wherever they have an opportunity to engage them, including candidate town halls, debates, campaign events, mosque and community forums, meet-and-greets, public listening sessions, district events, and meetings with candidates or campaign staff.

Community organizations can also invite all qualifying candidates in a race to participate in a nonpartisan candidate forum and ask each candidate the same set of questions.

Voters should not feel limited to in-person events. Questions can also be submitted directly to campaigns through their official websites, campaign email addresses, contact forms, social media accounts, or campaign offices.

How to Send the Questions to Candidates

CAIR recommends that voters identify the candidates running to represent them and contact each candidate in the race, so they have an equal opportunity to respond.

Community members can:

• Email the campaign: Send the questionnaire to the candidate’s publicly listed campaign email and request written responses.
• Use the campaign website: Most campaigns provide a “Contact Us” form that voters can use to submit questions.
• Ask on social media: Tag the candidate’s official campaign account and respectfully ask them to state their position on one or more questions.
• Call the campaign office: Ask campaign staff whether the candidate will provide responses to the questionnaire and where the questions should be submitted.
• Attend a town hall or campaign event: Bring one or two priority questions and ask the candidate directly.
• Organize a candidate forum: Mosques and community organizations can invite candidates to answer the same questions before community members.
• Follow up: If a campaign does not respond, send a follow-up request and document that the candidate was given an opportunity to answer.

When contacting campaigns, voters can write:

“As a voter in your district/state, I am asking candidates in this race to provide their positions on issues important to me and my community. Please provide your response to the following questions so that I can make an informed decision before voting.”

CAIR encourages voters and community organizations to preserve candidates’ written answers, publicly available statements, and responses at candidate forums so community members can compare positions and make their own informed voting decisions.

CAIR’s candidate-question resources are intended to initiate conversations and educate voters, not tell voters which candidates to support. CAIR has previously emphasized that its election resources are nonpartisan and that voters should independently research candidates and arrive at their own informed choices.

Take Action This Election Cycle

American Muslim voters are encouraged to:

Ask the questions. Get candidates on the record. Share their answers. Research their records. Make a plan to vote. And make an informed decision at the ballot box.

Visit Muslims.Vote for voter resources, election information, and tools to help Muslim Americans participate in the 2026 election cycle.

CAIR is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization and does not endorse or oppose candidates for public office. CAIR’s election resources are provided for educational and nonpartisan civic engagement purposes.  

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CONTACT: CAIR National Deputy Director Edward Ahmed Mitchell, 404-285-9530, [email protected]; CAIR Government Affairs Director Robert McCaw, 202-742-6448, [email protected]; CAIR National Communications Director Ibrahim Hooper, 202-744-7726, [email protected]; CAIR National Communications Manager Ismail Allison, 202-770-6280, [email protected]