{"id":28678,"date":"2020-09-22T07:27:41","date_gmt":"2020-09-22T03:27:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/?p=28678"},"modified":"2020-09-22T07:27:41","modified_gmt":"2020-09-22T03:27:41","slug":"asian-americans-political-preferences-have-flipped-from-red-to-blue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/asian-americans-political-preferences-have-flipped-from-red-to-blue\/","title":{"rendered":"Asian Americans\u2019 political preferences have flipped from red to blue"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"Asian American voters leave a Temple City, California, polling place in 2012, in the state\u2019s first legislative district that is majority Asian American.\u00a0Frederic J. Brown\/AFP via Getty Images<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Asian Americans used to be a reliable Republican voting bloc. But long before Kamala Harris, who is Indian American and Black, became Joe Biden\u2019s running mate, they shifted to support the Democratic Party. This is true across ages, genders and ethnic origins of Asian Americans \u2013 including Indian, Chinese, Filipino, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese and Hmong.<\/span><\/p>\n

As a political scientist, I\u2019m not just interested in voting, but also in how groups change their party preferences. This subject of study, known as \u201ccritical elections,\u201d looks at how political party fortunes change over time as a result of racial, religious or regional groups\u2019 changing views.<\/span><\/p>\n

The timing of the transition<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Back in 1992, The New York Times added the Asian American demographic to its exit polls. In that election, Asian Americans preferred incumbent Republican President George H. W. Bush to Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton, a Democrat, by 24 percentage points \u2013 55% to 31%. (Businessman and independent candidate H. Ross Perot got 15% of the Asian American vote, and Clinton won.)<\/span><\/p>\n

Four years later, in the 1996 presidential election, 48% of Asian Americans supported Republican Bob Dole, and 43% supported Clinton \u2013 just a five-point Republican advantage.<\/span><\/p>\n

Then, in 2000, Democrat Al Gore received 54% of the Asian American vote, against 41% for Republican George W. Bush, the son of the man who had won a strong majority of the group\u2019s vote just eight years earlier.<\/span><\/p>\n

The trend continued in 2004 as 56% of Asian Americans backed Democrat John Kerry and in 2008 with a whopping 62%-35% advantage to Barack Obama in those New York Times exit polls.<\/span><\/p>\n

More recently, CNN\u2019s exit polls showed a 73%-26% split in favor of Obama over former Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts in 2012, and a 65%-27% preference for Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump in 2016.<\/span><\/p>\n

Preliminary data from late August 2020 polls shows Biden leading comfortably among Asian Americans as well.<\/span><\/p>\n

Since 2000, the Asian American population has climbed 87%, now exceeding 22 million. In that same period, the number of Asian Americans eligible to vote has more than doubled, making it the fastest-growing racial or ethnic group in the electorate.<\/span><\/p>\n

Once known for low turnout at the ballot box, Asian American voting rates increased from 27% in 2014 to 40% in 2018, which is a big jump for a midterm election, showing an increased willingness to participate politically.<\/span><\/p>\n

Almost all Asian groups now back Democrats<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s true that Asian Americans are not necessarily a homogeneous group. Some have wondered if those with ties to countries that experienced communist rule might be more supportive of the Republican Party, which has historically strongly opposed communism.<\/span><\/p>\n

Research by Catalina Huamei Huang delves into these details, using data from the National Asian American Survey.<\/span><\/p>\n

She finds that all but one of the groups included in the survey\u2019s fall 2016 poll \u2013 Indian, Chinese, Filipino, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese and Hmong \u2013 have an unfavorable assessment of the Republican Party. Cambodian Americans are split on the subject, with just under half disliking the party and a similar percentage liking it. In most groups \u2013 except Filipinos, Cambodians and Hmong \u2013 fewer than one-third view the Republican Party favorably.<\/span><\/p>\n

By contrast, in the same study, more than two-thirds of Hmong, Japanese and Indians view the Democratic Party favorably. Vietnamese and Cambodians are the only groups with fewer than half of their members who view the Democratic Party favorably. As Huang found, those numbers are similar to results in a spring 2016 survey by the civil rights group Asian Americans Advancing Justice.<\/span><\/p>\n

Asian American demographics go Democratic<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Huang\u2019s analysis of both surveys also showed that Asian Americans of all ages are likely to be critical of Republicans. Younger people are more likely to be critical than their elders. All ages are also more likely to perceive the Democratic Party favorably, especially those under the age of 35.<\/span><\/p>\n

Asian American men and women prefer the Democratic Party by wide margins, and think less well of the GOP.<\/span><\/p>\n

Those demographic splits were also supported by Asian Americans\u2019 assessments of the 2016 presidential candidates, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, in both polls, with the exception of Vietnamese Americans who were divided. In 2020, Asian Americans are, if anything, more negative about Trump than they are toward his party. With Biden\u2019s choice of Harris as a running mate, Asian Americans of all backgrounds may further solidify their support for the Democratic Party.<\/span><\/p>\n

John A. <\/span>Tures<\/span><\/strong><\/span>
\nProfessor of Political Science, <\/span>
\nLaGrange College<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

* Published in print edition on 22 September 2020<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Asian American voters leave a Temple City, California, polling place in 2012, in the state\u2019s first legislative district that is majority Asian American.\u00a0Frederic J. Brown\/AFP via Getty Images Asian Americans used to be a reliable Republican voting bloc. But long before Kamala Harris, who is Indian American and Black, became Joe Biden\u2019s running mate, they […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":139,"featured_media":28679,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[8348],"tags":[22489,26540,26734,26736,26738,18069,18070,26735,26737,17521],"class_list":["post-28678","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-conversation","tag-2020-us-elections","tag-asian-americans","tag-democratic-party","tag-demographics","tag-exit-polls","tag-joe-biden","tag-kamala-harris","tag-republican-party","tag-south-asian-americans","tag-the-conversation"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/Asian.jpg?fit=1200%2C645&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8QzSF-7sy","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28678","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/139"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28678"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28678\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28679"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28678"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}