LANSING, Mich. — Vice President Kamala Harris has secured the endorsement of one of the nation’s largest Muslim American voter mobilization groups, marking a significant boost to her campaign since many Muslim and Arab American organizations have opted to support third-party candidates or not endorse.

Emgage Action, the political arm of an 18-year-old Muslim American advocacy group, endorsed Harris’ presidential campaign on Wednesday, saying in a statement provided first to The Associated Press that the group “recognizes the responsibility to defeat” former President Donald Trump in November.

The group, based in Washington, D.C., operates in eight states, with a significant presence in the key battlegrounds of Michigan and Pennsylvania.

The organization will now focus its ongoing voter-outreach efforts on supporting Harris and down-ballot candidates.

“This endorsement is not agreement with Vice President Harris on all issues, but rather, an honest guidance to our voters regarding the difficult choice they confront at the ballot box,” Wa’el Alzayat, CEO of Emgage Action, said in a statement. “While we do not agree with all of Harris’ policies, particularly on the war on Gaza, we are approaching this election with both pragmatism and conviction.”

The endorsement follows months of tension between Arab American and Muslim groups and Democratic leaders over the Biden administration’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war. Many of these groups, including leaders of the “Uncommitted” movement focused on protesting the war, have chosen not to endorse any candidate in the presidential race.

The conflict in the Middle East has escalated since Iran-backed Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel, which killed some 1,200 people. Israel’s offensive in response has killed more than 41,000 Palestinians, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.

Trump’s campaign dismissed the significance of the endorsement.

“Once again, national organizations’ endorsements aren’t matching up to what the people suffering from four years of Kamala Harris believe,” Victoria LaCivita, Trump’s communications director for Michigan, said Wednesday.

Meanwhile, both presidential candidates delivered dueling speeches Wednesday.

Harris pledged to build an economy that is both pro-business and helps the middle class as she pushed back against Trump’s claims that she’s advancing “communist” ideas.

Harris said in remarks at the Economic Club of Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania that she “would take good ideas from wherever they come” as she promised to double the number of people being trained in registered apprenticeships and outlined her support for more home ownership.

“As president, I will be grounded in my fundamental values of fairness, dignity and opportunity,” she said. “And I promise you, I will be pragmatic in my approach.”

Little more than a hour before her speech, Trump offered his own competing vision of the economy while visiting a furnituremaker in Mint Hill, North Carolina. He defended his idea for a special lower tax rate for U.S. manufacturers and pledged to impose tariffs high enough that there would be an “exodus” of auto factory jobs from Japan, Germany and South Korea.

But Trump also veered from his economic speech and touched on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

He described Ukraine in bleak and mournful terms, referring to its people as “dead” and the country itself as “demolished,” and further raising questions about how much he would be willing if elected again to concede in a negotiation over the country’s future.

Trump argued Ukraine should have made concessions to Russian President Vladimir Putin in the months before Russia’s February 2022 attack, declaring that even “the worst deal would’ve been better than what we have now.”