Asians are one of the most ignored constituencies in American politics. When most politicians think about the Asian vote, they don’t.
Yet the Asian-American population is increasing, both in absolute terms and relative ones. By 2050, the Census estimates that Asians will compose 7.8% of the American population. Although their voting rates will still fall far short of this, the population is becoming more influential. Predicting their future voting path therefore has some utility.
In previous posts, this blogger has argued that the Latino vote will likely trend Republican, as Latinos follow the path of previous immigrants and become more assimilated.
Will the same happen for Asian-Americans?
More below.
Probably not:
As the graph above shows, the Asian vote has steadily moved Democratic, in quite a significant manner. In 1992 Republican President George H.W. Bush won 55% of the Asian vote while losing the popular vote. 12 years later, his son won only 41% of Asians, despite winning the popular vote.
The trend also does not look bright for the Republican Party. Asian-Americans who have been born in the United States are, if anything, more Democratic than those who immigrated into the country (to be fair, the latter group dominates the Asian population and will continue to do so unless immigration is drastically curtailed).
Take, for instance, the Vietnamese-American population – strong supporters of the Republican Party. The Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, after conducting an extensive exit poll of Asians (perhaps the only detailed exit poll of the group in the country), found that:
Vietnamese American voters gave McCain the strongest support of all Asian ethnic groups at 67%. However, further analysis of Vietnamese American voters revealed 69% of those born in the U.S. and 60% of those 18-29 years old voted for Obama. Among Vietnamese American respondents, 15% were born in the U.S. and 25% were between the ages of 18 and 29.
The analysis goes on to conclude that:
AALDEF’s exit poll data shows that younger, U.S.-born, more recently naturalized, and English proficient Asian American citizens voted for Barack Obama for President by wide margins. Older, foreign-born citizens with limited English proficiency and who had been naturalized more than ten years ago voted in greater proportions for McCain.
There are several explanations for why this is happening. One quite plausible argument is that immigration has shifted the Asian-American population from Orange County anti-communists to Silicon Valley liberals.
Another revealing insight can be gained by comparing Asians to another very Democratic group: Jews. In many ways the two have a startling amount in common. Both groups are highly educated; both are primarily located in urban metropolitan areas; both have achieved substantial success in American society; and both have encountered quite similar types of discrimination. Even the stereotypes are similar.
Given these similarities, it is very conceivable that Asians could end up voting like Jews – one of the most liberal-minded groups in the nation.
–Inoljt, http://mypolitikal.com/
Exit polls in California showed the Asian vote on Prop 8 split about 50-50. However, lots of heavily Asian towns in California’s San Gabriel Valley heavily supported the ban. Nonetheless, the Bay Area voted against Prop 8, and if Asians really did go 50-50 statewide while voting for it in LA County, I can only imagine Bay Area Asians voted against it (albeit perhaps narrowly, as the Bay Area is the most Asian part of the state). What this might suggest is that immigrants might be likely to soak up the political culture of wherever they live.
FWIW, I’m pretty sure all of the Asian-Americans I know (who are my age) are pretty socially moderate or liberal, even if they subscribe to the Milton Friedman school of economics.
I’ve seen breakdowns of the Asian vote before, and there are huge differences between the groups, which mostly come down to how Christian the population is. Asian groups like Filipinos (Catholic), Koreans (majority Protestant in the U.S.), and Vietnamese (disproportionately Catholic, with the Catholics the most right-wing), generally are right-leaning, essentially voting not much different from whites. On the other hand, Chinese, Japanese, and Indians are overwhelmingly Democratic.
With younger generations, I wonder if the increased tilt towards Democrats is more a sign of the increasing irreligious nature of the nation, which may affect young Asians more, since they’re concentrated in the most secular parts of the country.
from a previous post on voter turnout in CA that Asian voter turnout is ahead of hispanics & AA voters?
Does any have stats on that?
was the assertion that hispanics would trend Republican. I think it’s crazy; the younger generations are the most liberal, and utterly alienated by Republican chest-thumping about immigration. How are they supposed to trend Republican? Beyond that, though its a mainly Catholic demographic, their Catholicism is more driven by a social justice, help the poor, boarderline socialist sentiment than it is by abortion and sex and gays, like it is among other Catholic demographics like the Italian vote and the Vietnamese vote.
These voters seem like a more natural fit for the Democratic party, and I don’t see Republicans ever cracking the 40% mark among this voting group, not in the near future, and under current electoral conditions and positionings.
The Google ads for this article include Asian dating sites and immigration services.
Some % of Asian Americans live in Hawaii, and Obama over-performed in Hawaii because he is from there.
afterall, conservatives are doing such a good job at outreach efforts to the Asian-American community:
http://www.dailykos.com/storyo…
…working with Indian voters was how conservative a lot of the immigrants were. They often talked like Republicans and responded well to a Republican-esque message as long as it came from a Democrat. However they were deeply suspicious of Republicans for all the reasons one would expect.
Before Pete Wilson and Buchanan helped push the more open Reagan Republican Party nativists these were the type of voters Republicans could get a lot more easily.
I wonder how much influence President Obama’s connections with Asia had in cementing some of the Asian-American vote in 2008? (Those ties would include growing up in Asian-majority, Pacific Hawaii; having lived in Indonesia with a mother who spent a great deal of time studying there; and his Asian-American sister.)
Certainly no other presidential candidate in history has had such cultural congruity with Asian-Americans, and I suspect that sense was a valuable asset in winning Asian-American votes.
Coupled with continued Republican hostility to immigrants, policies that resonate with parts of the Asian-American community (on issues such as education policy, international trade and geopolitics, civil rights, etc) seem to present a real and unique opportunity for Democrats to cement and strengthen these voting trends for the foreseeable future.