Good evening! Tonight, we examine the role Asian Americans can play in the 2024 election. Amy Chin, a national correspondent covering Asian American communities across the country, takes the story from here. — Jess Bidgood
One of the things you often hear about Asian American voters is that they primarily vote Democratic.
This has been true since 2008, when the first nationally representative survey of Asian Americans was conducted. And in 2020, Asian American voters voted for Joe Biden over then-President Donald Trump by a roughly 2-to-1 margin.
But if you look a little closer, the data reflects a more complex picture.
Asian American voters primarily vote Democratic, but tend to have weaker party affiliations. As such, Asian Americans could emerge as targets for both parties as they work hard to find convincing voters in what is expected to be a close presidential election.
“Asian Americans are a classic floating voter group,” says Karthik Ramakrishnan, founder and executive director of AAPI Data, a research organization focused on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. .
an unusually independent group of voters
Asian American voters are a highly diverse group with roots in more than 20 countries and speak many languages, making up the nation’s fastest-growing electorate. They are starting to come out in record numbers. And importantly, neither party takes their support for granted.
Asian American voters are twice as likely to identify as purely nonpartisan compared to the general electorate, according to data from the American National Election Survey and AAPI Data.
Support for the Democratic Party appears to be declining among Asian Americans. Roughly two-thirds of Asian Americans voted for President Biden in 2020, down from the high point of more than 70% who voted for Barack Obama’s reelection as president in 2012.
An analysis of AAPI data shows that only 59% of Asian American voters who identify as Democrats say they are “strong” Democrats; is lower than the 67% of general Democrats who think of themselves that way.
This is important because it suggests that Asian American voters are more persuasive than the general electorate and perhaps more open to campaign messages and advocacy efforts by candidates.
One reason for this may be the fact that Asian Americans are the only ethnic group with a foreign-born majority in the electorate.
Much of the growth in Asian American voters is due to newly naturalized Americans who came of age in a variety of political environments overseas and who were not raised in traditionally Democratic or Republican families.
These new voters often initially identify as independent, and still seek out “the halls,” so to speak, to find out which party best represents their values. I am in a state of “shopping”.
“A sense of belonging to a political party means a true commitment and understanding of what that party stands for,” said APIAVote, a nonpartisan voter education organization for Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. said Kristin Chen, executive director of. “A lot of first-time voters don’t have it yet.”
swing in both directions
The 2020 presidential election saw a breakthrough in Asian American mobilization, with national turnout increasing by nearly 40 percent compared to the 2016 election, the largest increase of any demographic group. did. It made a difference, especially in Georgia. In Georgia, Asian American voters joined forces to oust Mr. Trump and elect two Democratic senators in runoff elections that will determine the Senate majority.
But at times, Asian Americans lean toward the Republican Party. Consider the 2022 midterm elections. The Chinatown neighborhood in Brooklyn’s Sunset Park, once a Democratic stronghold, voted for Republican New York gubernatorial candidate Lee Zeldin. Zeldin lost, but interviews showed that many Asian American voters were turning away from the Democratic Party over concerns about crime.
Asian Americans are not a huge group. They accounted for 4% of the national constituency in 2020. By contrast, Latino voters make up about 15% of the electorate. Black voters, an important part of the Democratic base, make up 14% of the electorate, but turn out at a higher rate than Asian and Latino voters.
But in nearly every 2024 battleground state, the number of Asian Americans who voted in the 2020 presidential election exceeded the number of votes won, according to a TargetSmart analysis. (The only exception was Michigan.) In each of these states, at least 17 percent of Asian Americans who voted in the 2020 election were voting for the first time.
untapped potential
In recent years, there has been increased investment in community aid from both Democrats and Republicans. I witnessed this firsthand in Nevada during the 2022 midterm elections. In Nevada, Asian Americans currently make up 10 percent of the state’s voters.
The parties sent mailers in multiple Asian languages and placed advertisements in local Korean, Chinese, and Tagalog newspapers. The Republican Party hosted the event at the Asian Community Outreach Center in the heart of Las Vegas’ Chinatown. The center was one of several minority support offices the party briefly opened across the country, but most have since closed.
Democrats continue to focus on this group this time around. In July, Vice President Kamala Harris launched an Asian American voter outreach drive in Las Vegas. She said her campaign has a large staff focused on mobilizing the Asian American community and is increasing hiring in battleground states. If elected, Harris would not only become the country’s first South Asian president and first Asian American president, but also the first woman and first Black woman to hold the role. It’s not yet clear how much of an incentive it will be for American voters. big.
Asian American voters are also playing a key role in several competitive down-ballot races this year, particularly in Orange County, where California Republican Rep. Michelle Steele challenges Democrat Derek Tran. has been done. Asian American Quarter. Even San Francisco, where a fifth of the population is Chinese and is considered a strong candidate for mayor this year, is bending over backwards to gain support from the community.
Still, experts say both parties have much more untapped potential when it comes to Asian American voters. In a recent national survey, 42% of Asian American voters said they had not been contacted by either Democratic or Republican parties or candidates.
How Kamala Harris came into the spotlight
That is an important issue for 2024. How strong a politician is Vice President Kamala Harris? My colleagues Nicholas Nehamas, Erica Green and Ang Lee discuss how Harris has evolved as a public messenger since she first ran for president in 2019. We looked at five years worth of videos showing what we’ve done.
One last thing
What is “nuclear warming”? It’s unclear.
Last night, former President Donald Trump and tech billionaire Elon Musk held a two-hour livestream chat on X, touching on a variety of topics, including climate change.
Brad Plummer and Raymond Zorn, climate change covers for The New York Times, analyzed some of the highlights of the debate to help separate fact from fiction. Can solar power provide most of the planet’s energy, as Musk claims? Does the Arctic Refuge really have more oil than Saudi Arabia, as President Trump has claimed? And why is President Trump frustrated that people never talk about “nuclear warming”? Read more!
