A poll conducted earlier this month showed Vice President Kamala Harris holding a significant lead over former President Donald Trump among Asian Americans.
The poll found that 66% of Asian American voters plan to support Harris, while 28% said they would vote for Trump. President Joe Biden has been losing Asian American voters during the campaign, dropping by about eight points in previous polls compared to the 2020 presidential election cycle, but experts say Harris has reversed that decline.
“People have seen various Asian American groups holding Zoom meetings in support of Harris, but has that actually translated in terms of support? … The answer is yes,” said Kartik Ramakrishnan of the nonprofit AAPI Data, which commissioned the poll for the nonprofit Asian Pacific Islander American Voting. “Harris has basically restored a lot of the drop in approval ratings that Biden experienced.”
Ramakrishan explained that the “energy and dynamism” that Harris brought to the election cycle likely drove a big shift among racial groups.
“Biden’s disapproval and favorability ratings have dropped significantly because people don’t think he can serve the next four years,” Ramakrishnan said. “They see something very different than what they see with Harris.”
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The poll, released Tuesday, also found that while Harris’ race is a big factor this election cycle, Asian American voters say her identity as a woman is more important: 38% of Asian American voters said Harris’ gender identity is “extremely” or “very” important. By contrast, 27% said the same about her racial identity as an Indian or South Asian American.
Ramakrishnan said Harris’ outspokenness on reproductive rights, especially since the 2022 Dobbs decision that overturned federal abortion rights upheld in Roe v. Wade, “made a difference” in the weighting of her gender identity. But there’s another powerful factor for many female voters.
“There are a lot of factors that could have motivated women in 2016 in terms of their personal experiences with barriers in the workplace,” Ramakrishnan said, comparing Harris’ historic campaign to that of Hillary Clinton. “The feeling of a woman being president — ‘America’s top CEO’ — could be a source of inspiration.”
According to the Pew Research Center, the Asian American electorate has grown by 15% over the past four years, making it the fastest-growing electorate in the U.S. Previous polls have shown that jobs and the economy are their top priority, with inflation and health care tied for second place.
The new poll, conducted earlier this month by the National Opinion Research Center in English and several Asian languages, included 1,105 registered Asian American voters and had a margin of error of plus or minus 5.1 percentage points.
Before Harris entered the race, 46% of Asian American voters said they would choose Biden, down from 54% who said they intended to do so in 2020. During that election, just under a third said they would vote for Trump.
The poll also showed an increase in Harris’ overall favorability rating: 62% of respondents said they had a favorable view of the vice president, while 35% said they had an unfavorable view. That’s up 18 points from the previous survey, conducted in April and May. Ramakrishnan noted that the results suggest Harris would perform better as Biden’s front-runner than as his running mate.
Meanwhile, 28% of Asian American voters have a favorable view of Donald Trump, down slightly from the previous poll.
Among the vice presidential candidates, Democratic Governor Tim Walz was viewed favorably by 56% of Asian American voters, more than double the percentage who viewed Republican Senator J.D. Vance favorably.
Turnout is also likely to increase, polls suggest: 77% of Asian Americans say they are “absolutely certain” to vote now, up from 68% who said the same in April and May.
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