The large, largely untapped bloc of Asian American Independent voters could deliver the win to Democratic Presidential candidate Kamala Harris or her opponent, Republican Donald Trump in an extremely tight race.
The New York Times/Siena College poll, released one day ahead of the much-anticipated Sept. 10 debate, showed Trump leading Harris by 1 point, with a margin of error at +/- 2.8 points. The two are in a tie in the critical swing states of Pennsylvania, Nevada, and Arizona. Harris edges out Trump by the slimmest of margins in Wisconsin, Michigan, and North Carolina, while Trump prevails by 1 point in Georgia.
The critical swing states are home to about 1.75 million Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders who are eligible to vote. They may represent just 3 or 4% of the voting population in their states, but that small percentage could deliver the margin of victory.
Independents Are Up for Grabs
At a Sept. 6 Ethnic Media Services news briefing, Republican strategist Rina Shah said the huge bloc of AANHPI Independents is up for grabs by any party who actively engages with the community. The 2024 Asian American Voter Survey revealed that less than 42% of AANHPI voters had been contacted by either party.
Immigration reform, education, educational equity, and economic opportunity are key issues that register with AANHPI voters of either party, said Shah. Both parties need to engage more directly with the AANHPI community through not only targeted outreach, but also by addressing specific local concerns, she said, adding such outreach could include hosting community events, working with local leaders, and creating policies that address the unique needs of the community.
“To court the growing independent AANHPI vote, it’s going to take a mix of relevant policy focus as well as genuine engagement,” said Shah.
Many Republicans are dissatisfied with Trump at the top of the ticket, said Shah, who in 2016 headed up Republican presidential candidate Evan McMullin’s bid for the White House. She noted that they may vote for Harris at the top of the ticket, but continue to vote Republican in down-ballot races.
1st Time Voters
Fifteen million AANHPIs are eligible to vote, noted APIAVote President Christine Chen. In 2020, about 65% came out to vote. In critical battleground states, roughly one out of four AANHPIs were voting for the 1st time.
In 2020, President Joe Biden won Georgia by less than 12,000 votes. The number of AAPIs who voted in 2020 in Georgia was over 142,000, and 26% were first-time voters, said Chen.
“If you do the math, that’s about 39,000 voters, three times the margin of victory. So these are concrete ways and numbers that we’re seeing where we actually are making a difference,” she said.
Bread and butter issues, along with immigration, and crime are among the most important issues for AANHPI voters, but Chen said that a significant number of voters see little difference in which party can successfully tackle those issues.
‘The Reason for Victory’
“The AANHPI vote is very significant,” said Shekar Narasimhan, chairman and founder of the AAPI Victory Fund. “I prefer actually, instead of saying that we are the margin of victory, to saying now that we are the reason for victory,” he said, speaking from the battleground state of Michigan, where he had organized a massive Get Out the Vote effort.
Narasimhan agreed that AANHPI voters of any persuasion need to be more effectively courted. Asian Americans are among the most active on social media, but in 2020, the first truly virtual year for campaigning, more than half the community was not reached.
“Candidates don’t know how to talk to us, which language to reach, which communities to talk to, the WhatsApp channels that we frequent, or the television. And therefore, there is an absence of information,” said Narasimhan, who noted that a huge percentage of AANHPIs are low-information voters. “We tell every candidate to show up in our communities, talk to our voters about the issues that matter to this community,” he said, noting critical issues include immigration, and access to capital for small businesses.
Vietnamese American Shift Left?
Dr. Tung Nguyen, founder and president of The Progressive Vietnamese American Organization — PIVOT — said that Vietnamese American voters, among the most conservative AANHPIs who traditionally vote Republican, are slowly shifting left. “There is a toss-up between Republicans and Democrats, with a significant portion of around 25% who are Independent and can still be persuaded,” said Nguyen.
“There is rampant misinformation and disinformation in our communities, both in English, but especially in Vietnamese, with much of that bad content coming out on YouTube, he said. PIVOT has created VietFact Check. Nguyen described the resource as a “nonpartisan information service that has really served as a model for bilingual anti-disinformation work in Asian American communities.”
PIVOT has also created a bilingual Get Out the Vote ad campaign, which the organization is disseminating through many platforms, including conservative, Trump-supporting groups. Additionally, the organization plans to distribute 100,000 hand-written postcards before Election Day Nov. 5.
Asian American Conservatism
“Older Vietnamese American voters who use to support Trump are either less vocal about him or less enthusiastic about him or have been turned off by him, mostly not around policy issues, but around character issues. And this seems to have started with the insurrection in January 2021,” said Nguyen. The Biden Administration’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war has turned off some younger Vietnamese Americans, who are not yet backing Harris, he said.
University of San Francisco Professor Dr. James Zarsadiaz discussed the history of Asian American conservatism. Until the 1990s, Asian Americans traditionally voted Republican, believing that the party was aligned with their values of traditional families and supporting economic growth. George HW Bush successfully courted AAPI voters in 1992, and Bob Dole followed in 1996, though there was also considerable enthusiasm for Democratic candidate Bill Clinton.
The year 2000 saw a dramatic shift, as AAPIs voted for Democratic Presidential candidate Al Gore, who won the popular vote, but lost the electoral college. A wave of anti-Asianism, along with the new “hard right policies” of House Speaker Newt Gingrich’s Congress made many AAPIs question their loyalty to the Republican Party, said Zarsadiaz, who is working on a book: “The Asian American Conservative.”
Democrats ‘Soft on Crime’
But the shift left may be turning again. “There are a lot of registered Asian American Democrats who are starting to move more right, voting for maybe central left or more moderate Democrats, as opposed to backing folks who are more liberal or more progressive,” said Zarsadiaz.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, which brought with it a wave of anti-Asian hate crimes, Zarsadiaz said many AANHPIs felt unsupported by the Democratic party, which has been characterized as “soft on crime.”
Pennsylvania: the Ultimate Battleground
Mohan Seshadri, executive director of the Asian Pacific Islander Political Alliance, spoke to reporters from the battleground state of Pennsylvania, which several pundits believe will determine the outcome of the 2024 Presidential election.
“Pennsylvania is the battleground of battlegrounds. It’s where everything’s going down. And that means that for our community, when we’re the margin of victory, there’s an intense opportunity to build local grassroots political power,” he said, noting that organizations need to be long-term resourced, so that they’re doing day-to-day outreach in the community, outside of election cycles.
“When we launched in 2020, we doubled the Asian-American vote in Pennsylvania, and that doubling provided fully half of President Biden’s margin of victory in the state,” said Seshadri, adding that his organization was also successful in flipping down-ballot races.
“We’re going to knock on 500,000 doors in 22 languages; make 5 million phone calls in 22 languages. We’re going to send a million pieces of mail in the languages our communities speak with representation from our community leaders on it in order to meet every single member of our community where they are, and make sure they know not just how to vote in this critical election, but also which candidates up and down the ballot are actually going to listen to and fight for our communities,” he said.
