Super Tuesday saw former Vice President Joe Biden leap ahead in the battle for the Democratic presidential nomination while Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) got knocked out of the lead.

Despite the losses, the Sanders campaign has advanced how presidential candidates have reached out to Muslim voters. In the 2020 campaign, nearly all of the Democratic presidential candidates have lobbied Muslim communities across the country in hopes of garnering their support.

The day before Super Tuesday, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) released an in-depth plan that tackled issues faced by Muslim Americans alongside a running list of endorsements from Muslim leaders. Biden tapped into Gold Star father Khizr Khan , who spoke at the 2016 Democratic National Convention, to engage Muslim voters. Even former New York Mayor Bloomberg, who has long been condemned by Muslims for refusing to apologize for his controversial program of police surveillance of Muslims, attempted to reconcile through a single tweet that said he spoke up for Muslims.

Before dropping out, South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, and Washington Gov. Jay Inslee visited mosques as they campaigned for the Democratic nomination. New York Mayor Bill de Blasio was the only candidate to attend a Muslim conference in Washington, D.C., in person. In Houston, Sanders and Julin Castro attended the largest gathering of Muslim Americans last year.

Its a sign of health that the community has a diversity of opinion, and theres a home in different campaigns for our communities, said Wael Alzayat, CEO of Emgage, a Muslim civic engagement advocacy organization. The organizations political action committee endorsed Bernie Sanders, noting that the Vermont senator had included Muslims in his messaging more than any other candidate this election cycle.

Prior to the 2020 election, few politicians formalized their attempts to reach out to Muslim voters, partly due to the fact that Muslims comprise only 1% of the U.S. population and partly because the community wasnt as politically engaged.

Neither Obama nor Hillary Clinton visited a mosque during the race for the Democratic nomination in 2008. Obama didnt visit a mosque until his final year in the White House. During the last Democratic presidential primary, Maryland Gov. Martin OMalley visited a mosque in Sterling, Virginia, in 2015. In 2016, Clinton hired a Muslim outreach director, Farooq Mitha, and Huma Abedin, her campaign vice chair, often acted as a surrogate in the community. But still, many Muslim Americans were reticent to back Clinton based on her actions as secretary of state.

On the Republican side, then-President George W. Bush made it a point to visit the Islamic Center of Washington a few days after the 9/11 terrorist attacks in an attempt to discourage the wave of hate crimes against Muslims. (In fact, Bush courted the Muslim vote during his 2000 campaign and won, with several studies citing more than 40% of Muslims voted for him over Al Gore.)

More recently, in 2015, Republican Sen. Jeff Flake of Arizona visited a mosque in an attempt to repair the GOPs relationship with Muslims after then-candidate Donald Trump called for a complete shutdown of Muslims entering the U.S.

Democrats and Republicans have consistently on the national level abused the Muslim community and its support, said Ibraheem Samirah, a Virginia state delegate who endorsed Sanders. They have taken them for granted and in many cases hurt them with policies, with no regard for their vote whatsoever.