Voting by Asian Americans spiked for the midterm elections

Voting by Asian Americans increased by 49% during the midterm elections in 2018, according to a report from the U.S. Census Bureau.

The almost 50% jump in voting when compared to the last midterm election in 2014 indicates an increased interest in participating in the electoral process which might be due to  aggressive voter registration drives and get-out-the-vote campaigns by AAPI community advocacy groups and ethnic media.

A poll by the Asian American Legal Defense & Education Fund (AALDEF) showed that AAPI voters overwhelmingly voted Democratic in the 2018 elections and were strongly motivated to vote against Trump because of his anti-immigrant policies.

Overall, voter turnout went up among all voting age and major racial and ethnic groups. Fifty-three percent of the citizen voting-age population voted in 2018, the highest midterm turnout in four decades, while the 2014 election had the lowest, says the data from the Current Population Survey’s Voting and Registration Supplement.

Comparing the voter turnout of men and women, there was no significant difference between the genders among AAPI voters. That was not the case in other ethnic groups.

Voter turnout for non-Hispanic black women was 55 percent, compared with 47 percent for non-Hispanic black men, an 8 percentage point gap.

Hispanic women voted at higher rates than Hispanic men, with 2018 voter turnout rates of 43 percent and 37 percent, respectively.

The difference between male and female turnout was two percentage points among non-Hispanic whites.

The biggest jump in voting was among younger voters, which traditionally had low voter turnout. Among 18- to 29-year-olds, voter turnout went from 20 percent in 2014 to 36 percent in 2018, the largest percentage point increase for any age group — a 79 percent jump.

Other findings of the report showed that voter turnout went up more in some groups than others from 2014 to 2018:

• Among men and women, voter turnout increased by 11 and 12 percentage points respectively.
• Voter turnout increased among non-Hispanic Asians by 13 percentage points, a 49 percent increase.
• Among Hispanics, voter turnout increased by 13 percentage points, a 50 percent increase in Hispanic voter turnout.
• Non-Hispanic black voter turnout increased by 11 percentage points.
• Those with higher levels of education had higher levels of voter turnout in 2018.  Those with less than a high school education had the smallest increase in voter turnout (5 percentage points). Those with a high school diploma or equivalent had the second-lowest increase (8 percentage points).
• Voting by native-born and naturalized citizens both increased by 12 percentage points. This increase is not significantly different between native-born and naturalized citizens.
• Unlike the 2014 midterm election, voter turnout among those living in nonmetropolitan areas (up 8 points) was lower than for those living in metropolitan areas (up 12 points).

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