According to some prominent politicians, including former President Barack Obama, the outcome of the Midterm Elections could possibly determine the future of US democracy and society for decades to come. And the role of AANHPI voters can not be more critical.
"Asian Americans have really come into prominence as a new electoral force to be reckoned with," said Sara Sadhwani, a senior researcher for AAPI Data.
Nationwide, Asian Americans now comprise about 5.5 percent of the eligible voter population, according to the Pew Research Center, nearly twice their share in 2000.
In the 2020 presidential election, AAPI voter turnout increased 47% from the 2016 election, compared with a 12% rise for all other voters, creating an “unprecedented impact,” according to Tom Bonier, chief executive officer of the political data firm TargetSmart, which analyzes data about voters and consumers.
APIAVote is optimistic that Asian American voters will make a strong showing in midterm elections. AAPIs are now the margin of victory in six states and more than 40 congressional districts, according to AAPI Victory Fund, another voter advocacy group that began in 2016.
The growing influence of the AANHPI vote has put a media spotlight with newspapers and pundits across the country take a closer look at the often overlooked and ignored ethnic groups that fall under the overly broad banner of Asian America.
Following are excerpts of articles on the impact of the AANHPI electorate on the Midterms.
TEXAS: CBS AUSTIN
When it comes to policy issues, AAPI Texans share more commonalities with other communities of color than with white Texans. For Cheng, as an organizer and advocate in Texas, this takeaway wasn’t necessarily as surprising. “You see that there’s organizations already out there, led by communities of color, who’ve been doing this work for a really long time,” she says. “In any community, the best way to start out is to just show up and listen to what’s going on. Uplift and support their work, see where there’s common ground on a local level and how organizations and individuals can support one another across communities of color.”
The red-letter issues in the gubernatorial campaign like abortion rights and gun reform? Sixty-six percent of the polled AAPI Texas voters say they're important. More than 95% say funding public education, voting rights, economic recovery and inflation are important issues to them.
Both incumbent Governor Greg Abbott and his Democratic challenger Beto O’Rourke have reached out to Asian American voters. Abbott took pictures at his campaign stop at the Asian Republican Club in Houston in September.
“We know that the Beto campaign has a number of AAPI staffers that have been engaged with the community,” Trieu said.
But is it enough to get Asian American voters out?
“We're slowly coming into getting more civically engaged and putting our voice out there more and I think the parties on both sides are slowly coming to the Asian community,” said Sethi.
NORTH CAROLINA: NBC
For decades, Asian American voters haven’t been courted as heartily by presidential campaigns as other groups, but the political world has started to play catch-up. And in battleground states like North Carolina, which President Donald Trump carried by less than 4 percentage points in 2016, the candidates this year really do have to fight for every vote: As of this week, RealClearPolitics polling averages showed Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden in a dead heat in North Carolina, with Biden up by less than 2 percentage points.
According to numbers compiled by APIA Vote and AAPI Data, there are nearly 172,000 eligible Asian American voters in North Carolina, representing about 3.5 percent of the electorate. The state’s total AAPI population came in at just over 363,000 — exploding by 154 percent since 2000. Indian Americans accounted for well over half of the AAPIs in North Carolina, followed by people of Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese and Japanese descent.
In an era and landscape of close-call races — the state’s 2016 governor’s race was decided by about 10,000 votes — “we're really focused on the fact that AAPI voters in North Carolina can be the determining factor in this election of a lifetime," said Koneru, who previously worked on AAPI language-access issues for the voting section of the Department of Justice and is also head of NCAAT’s politically engaged affiliate, NCAAT In Action.
Tom Wong, associate professor of political science and founding director of the U.S. Immigration Policy Center at the University of California at San Diego, said his research shows AAPI voters may have even more influence in North Carolina than previously believed: Based on a study he conducted in coordination with NCAAT that factored in genealogical information and direct voter outreach and adjusted for errors in self-identification -- such as Indian Americans checking boxes for "American Indian" on official forms -- Wong believes the number of AAPI voters could be more than 200,000.
While there are currently more registered Democrats than Republicans in North Carolina, Wong notes that AAPI voters are more likely to be registered as unaffiliated than other groups: "The AAPI electorate is not monolithic and is not tied to a particular party," he said. "In other words, the AAPI electorate is up for grabs."
However, Wong — who served as a White House adviser on AAPI issues during the Obama years — said his research shows that the 1 out of 5 North Carolina AAPI voters surveyed said they had experienced discrimination during the pandemic. Significant numbers of voters said they were less likely to support a candidate that used terms like "Chinese virus" or "kung flu" in discussing the pandemic, according to Wong, and want a president who tries to understand the issues facing AAPIs.
Overall, then, "when we think about how these data triangulate, then my conclusion is that AAPI voters in North Carolina are likely to vote for Biden, potentially even as a bloc, because of the experience of discrimination during Covid-19," Wong said.
Team Trump, however, said that its message and its candidate will prove to have broad appeal to AAPI voters in North Carolina and beyond.
“As an Asian American from North Carolina, I know full well that the president’s message of hard work, low taxes, safer streets, and increased opportunity strongly resonates with our community,” said Ken Farnaso, deputy national press secretary for the Trump campaign. “Big government leads to less freedom, and Biden’s communist agenda mirrors that of so many failed governments where many of our families have come from. In two weeks, North Carolina will handily deliver a win for President Trump.”
GEORGIA: THE GUARDIAN
Though Asian Americans comprise only about 4% of Georgia’s population – a far smaller share than in places like California – they have emerged as an increasingly influential electoral force in this politically divided, southern swing state.
Historic turnout among Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) voters – who make up the fastest-growing segment of Georgia’s electorate – helped Joe Biden become the first Democratic presidential candidate to win the state since 1992. According to national exit polls, nearly two-thirds of Asian American and Pacific Islander voters cast their ballot for Biden.
By some estimates, voter participation among Asian Americans in Georgia nearly doubled from 2016 to 2020 – a result of the years-long voter engagement and mobilization efforts led by a new generation of Asian American organizers and activists.
The flyers, which rely heavily on misleading headlines and text from right-wing news outlets, appeared after former Trump aides, who also work with Miller’s foundation, produced a deeply dishonest digital ad. That ad sought to blame President Joe Biden for the rise in racist attacks on Asian Americans, which first spiked in March 2020 when then-President Donald Trump started calling Covid-19 “the Chinese virus” and “the kung flu.”
With Asian American voters poised to play a deciding role in Pennsylvania’s midterm elections including in races for a new Governor and US Senator, former Trump staff have launched deceitful, racist, hateful mailers and digital ads aimed at suppressing the turnout of Asian voters.
The Asian American vote in Pennsylvania is the largest it has ever been at 250,000+ and growing consistently in both size and power. Asian Americans are the fastest-growing ethnic group in the US and make up 45% of newly naturalized citizens in Pennsylvania, and will play a significant role in determining Pennsylvania’s next Senator and Governor.
Facts about Asian voters in Pennsylvania from API PA’s voter analysis: 75% of eligible Asian American voters cast a ballot in 2020 (up more than 13 percentage points from 61.54% in 2016 and 57.1% in 2012), an unexpected doubling in turnout that contributed significantly to Biden’s 80,000 vote win margin.
50% of Asian American voters in Pennsylvania requested mail-in ballots in 2020, the highest percentage for any community, and Asian American voters had the 2nd highest vote by mail return rate of any community in PA
The Asian Pacific Islander Political Alliance (API PA) has knocked more than 120,000 doors and made more than 2.25 million phone calls in 15 languages to Asian American voters across the state. At least 15,000 of those phone calls were fully in the voter’s non-English language (crucial outreach, as 78% of Asian Pennsylvanians speak a language other than English at home).
API PA’s landmark language-accessible and culturally-competent voter outreach program results in a very high contact and conversion rate: At a recent phone bank by South Asians contacting South Asians, 90% of undecided voters committed to voting for API PA’s candidates by the end of the call.
Said Mohan Seshadri, Executive Director of Asian Pacific Islander Political Alliance (API PA):
“Asian American voters have massive power in Pennsylvania, and that power has rattled Republicans so much that they’re lobbing race-baiting misinformation at our people, trying to deceive and manipulate Asian American voters. Our folks have overcome many barriers to vote, and we’re combating these bad-faith politics by talking to tens of thousands of our voters, knocking hundreds of thousands of doors, and making millions of calls, speaking to voters in their language and making sure our folks have the facts they need to vote. Just like in 2020, when 75% of eligible Asian voters cast a vote, our ballots will do the talking.”
The digital ads and mailings are part of a coordinated campaign by the American First Legal Foundation, founded by Trump staffer Stephen Miller, who was the architect behind the Trump Administration’s family separation program, which led to widespread images of kids in cages that shocked the nation. Outside of Pennsylvania, mailers have been received in Arizona, Virginia, California, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Oklahoma, and Texas over the past week and digital and radio advertisements have also popped up across the country.
In 2020, API PA signed up more than 1,400 Asian Americans to volunteer and made 1.3 million calls to voters in PA, about half of which were to sign Asian voters up to vote by mail. API PA made an additional 55,000 in-language persuasion and GOTV calls to low-English proficiency Asian voters.
The November election is right around the corner, and one local organization is helping community members prepare to cast their ballot.
Employees and volunteers at the Hmong American Center in Wausau helps those in the Hmong community register online.
The center emphasizes its elders often encourage everyone to exercise their right to vote, and the goal was to make that as easy as possible for those in the community.
"We know that the Hmong community, many here want to be involved, want to exercise their ability to vote, but they don't know how to actually get involved or register to vote," Yee Leng Xiong, the Executive Director, said.
Xiong says the Hmong and Asian population often make a marginal difference in elections, and regardless of who people are voting for, the center wants to make sure their voices are heard.
TEXAS: CBS AUSTIN
When it comes to policy issues, AAPI Texans share more commonalities with other communities of color than with white Texans. For Cheng, as an organizer and advocate in Texas, this takeaway wasn’t necessarily as surprising. “You see that there’s organizations already out there, led by communities of color, who’ve been doing this work for a really long time,” she says. “In any community, the best way to start out is to just show up and listen to what’s going on. Uplift and support their work, see where there’s common ground on a local level and how organizations and individuals can support one another across communities of color.”
- Specifically for the 2022 Midterms and 88th Texas Legislature, among Texan AAPIs…54% oppose banning the teaching of critical race theory
- 77% support expanding Medicare to all Texans
- 77% believe abortion should be legal in most or all cases
- 83% support gun safety reform
- 85% support laws that make it more convenient for people to vote
The red-letter issues in the gubernatorial campaign like abortion rights and gun reform? Sixty-six percent of the polled AAPI Texas voters say they're important. More than 95% say funding public education, voting rights, economic recovery and inflation are important issues to them.
Both incumbent Governor Greg Abbott and his Democratic challenger Beto O’Rourke have reached out to Asian American voters. Abbott took pictures at his campaign stop at the Asian Republican Club in Houston in September.
“We know that the Beto campaign has a number of AAPI staffers that have been engaged with the community,” Trieu said.
But is it enough to get Asian American voters out?
“We're slowly coming into getting more civically engaged and putting our voice out there more and I think the parties on both sides are slowly coming to the Asian community,” said Sethi.
NORTH CAROLINA: NBC
For decades, Asian American voters haven’t been courted as heartily by presidential campaigns as other groups, but the political world has started to play catch-up. And in battleground states like North Carolina, which President Donald Trump carried by less than 4 percentage points in 2016, the candidates this year really do have to fight for every vote: As of this week, RealClearPolitics polling averages showed Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden in a dead heat in North Carolina, with Biden up by less than 2 percentage points.
According to numbers compiled by APIA Vote and AAPI Data, there are nearly 172,000 eligible Asian American voters in North Carolina, representing about 3.5 percent of the electorate. The state’s total AAPI population came in at just over 363,000 — exploding by 154 percent since 2000. Indian Americans accounted for well over half of the AAPIs in North Carolina, followed by people of Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese and Japanese descent.
In an era and landscape of close-call races — the state’s 2016 governor’s race was decided by about 10,000 votes — “we're really focused on the fact that AAPI voters in North Carolina can be the determining factor in this election of a lifetime," said Koneru, who previously worked on AAPI language-access issues for the voting section of the Department of Justice and is also head of NCAAT’s politically engaged affiliate, NCAAT In Action.
Tom Wong, associate professor of political science and founding director of the U.S. Immigration Policy Center at the University of California at San Diego, said his research shows AAPI voters may have even more influence in North Carolina than previously believed: Based on a study he conducted in coordination with NCAAT that factored in genealogical information and direct voter outreach and adjusted for errors in self-identification -- such as Indian Americans checking boxes for "American Indian" on official forms -- Wong believes the number of AAPI voters could be more than 200,000.
While there are currently more registered Democrats than Republicans in North Carolina, Wong notes that AAPI voters are more likely to be registered as unaffiliated than other groups: "The AAPI electorate is not monolithic and is not tied to a particular party," he said. "In other words, the AAPI electorate is up for grabs."
However, Wong — who served as a White House adviser on AAPI issues during the Obama years — said his research shows that the 1 out of 5 North Carolina AAPI voters surveyed said they had experienced discrimination during the pandemic. Significant numbers of voters said they were less likely to support a candidate that used terms like "Chinese virus" or "kung flu" in discussing the pandemic, according to Wong, and want a president who tries to understand the issues facing AAPIs.
Overall, then, "when we think about how these data triangulate, then my conclusion is that AAPI voters in North Carolina are likely to vote for Biden, potentially even as a bloc, because of the experience of discrimination during Covid-19," Wong said.
Team Trump, however, said that its message and its candidate will prove to have broad appeal to AAPI voters in North Carolina and beyond.
“As an Asian American from North Carolina, I know full well that the president’s message of hard work, low taxes, safer streets, and increased opportunity strongly resonates with our community,” said Ken Farnaso, deputy national press secretary for the Trump campaign. “Big government leads to less freedom, and Biden’s communist agenda mirrors that of so many failed governments where many of our families have come from. In two weeks, North Carolina will handily deliver a win for President Trump.”
GEORGIA: THE GUARDIAN
Though Asian Americans comprise only about 4% of Georgia’s population – a far smaller share than in places like California – they have emerged as an increasingly influential electoral force in this politically divided, southern swing state.
Historic turnout among Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) voters – who make up the fastest-growing segment of Georgia’s electorate – helped Joe Biden become the first Democratic presidential candidate to win the state since 1992. According to national exit polls, nearly two-thirds of Asian American and Pacific Islander voters cast their ballot for Biden.
By some estimates, voter participation among Asian Americans in Georgia nearly doubled from 2016 to 2020 – a result of the years-long voter engagement and mobilization efforts led by a new generation of Asian American organizers and activists.
“When no one was looking, we really changed things in Georgia,” Cho said.
“We are absolutely crucial in this race,” said Anjali Enjeti, the co-founder of the Georgia chapter of the group They See Blue, which mobilizes south Asian Democrats. “We turned out in 2020 at a rate higher – much higher – than we have historically turned out and we can absolutely help bring it home again.”
“We are absolutely crucial in this race,” said Anjali Enjeti, the co-founder of the Georgia chapter of the group They See Blue, which mobilizes south Asian Democrats. “We turned out in 2020 at a rate higher – much higher – than we have historically turned out and we can absolutely help bring it home again.”
In this year’s midterm elections, about 200,000 of the nearly 300,000 requested absentee ballots had been returned as of Friday. That’s proportionally far less than the 2020 presidential election, when voters cast more than 1.3m absentee ballots throughout the state.
“The hurdles are up in front of Georgia voters, and some are having difficulty jumping those hurdles on the way to the ballot box,” said Vasu Abhiraman, deputy policy and advocacy director at ACLU of Georgia. “Voters in Georgia are not feeling as confident when they cast their ballots this time around.”
Advocates say the restrictions disproportionately affect specific demographics throughout the state who continue to grow within Georgia’s rapidly changing electorate. Asian voters make up less than 2%, or about 35,000, of early votes in the state’s midterm elections this year – a noticeable downward turn from the 134,000 ballots cast by the same community at this point in 2020.
NEVADA: THE NEW YORK TIMES
The Asian American population has boomed in Nevada over the past three decades, and Asian Americans now make up about 10% of the state’s eligible voters, a larger share than in any state except Hawaii or California. Republican and Democratic leaders believe that Asian Americans could decide congressional races in the state that will help determine control in Washington — and they are devoting a lot of time and effort to reaching those voters.
“Everyone knows to pay attention to the Asian community now, because we’re here,” said Ms. Lin, the president and founder of the Asian Community Development Council, a community-based nonprofit in Las Vegas.
..... Unlike the Asian American communities in California and New York, which took root more than a century ago, Nevada’s is relatively new to the state. Many Asian Americans have moved to Nevada in recent years from California, seeking a lower cost of living and plentiful jobs in health care and hospitality. Others are businesspeople or real estate investors drawn by Nevada’s lack of a state personal income tax.
Today, Filipino Americans comprise about 43% of Nevada’s nearly 400,000 Asian residents, followed by Chinese Americans at 13%, according to APIA Vote and AAPI Data, which publishes demographic data and policy research on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders.
Churches, temples and cultural groups for Asians have proliferated. Many Asian Americans are members of the powerful Culinary Workers Union and the Service Employees International Union.
“Five years ago, we were invisible. Now, elected officials and candidates are coming to court the AAPIs because they know that we have the vote,” said Grace Vergara-Mactal, the executive director of the state branch of the service employees’ union, which represents about 19,000 workers, a quarter of them Asian, who work mainly in health care or government jobs.
CALIFORNIA: CNN
California’s 45th Congressional District, straddling Orange and Los Angeles counties, is as perfect an illustration of the diversity and power of Asian American voters as might be possible.
The contest features a duel between two Asian Americans: Jay Chen, a Democrat, is battling Michelle Steel, the Republican incumbent, for a House seat. And the Asian American voters who make up about a third of the district’s electorate will play a significant role in determining the outcome of the intensely competitive race.
“I think that this race epitomizes the diversity of the Asian American community. You’re seeing a Korean immigrant incumbent, who’s a Republican, being challenged by a Taiwanese American Democrat, and her strategy is to stoke anti-Chinese sentiment by campaigning in the Vietnamese immigrant community,” Connie Chung Joe, the CEO of Asian Americans Advancing Justice – Los Angeles, told CNN, referring to criticisms that Steel is seeking to tap into anxieties about China’s influence in the region by calling Chen “China’s Choice” in some of her attack ads. “And when you look at the district, you see that it’s heavily Asian American.”
Karthick Ramakrishnan, the founder and director of the nonprofit group AAPI Data and a professor of political science and public policy at the University of California, Riverside, echoed some of Joe’s sentiments.
“The Asian American vote, even though it’s not large, is big enough to make a difference,” he explained. “This district in California is part of that story.”
A Pew survey from August reported that 57% of English-speaking, Asian registered voters said that they’d likely back the Democratic candidate in the House race in their district, while only 26% said that they’d support the Republican candidate.
Per AAPI Data, Indian Americans are the most Democratic-leaning group among Asian American voters. Meanwhile, Vietnamese Americans lean more Republican than voters of other Asian backgrounds or heritages. (Notably, former President Donald Trump seemed to make slight gains with some Asian Americans in 2020.)
ARIZONA: ARIZONA MIRROR
Asian American voter turnout soared in 2020, especially in Arizona. Ahead of the midterms, advocacy groups are seeking to continue to energize the Asian American Pacific Islander community, a demographic that they say has been largely ignored by political campaigns.
“We’re the fastest growing racial demographic across the country,” RUN AAPI’s senior advisor, Linh Nguyen said in an interview with the Arizona Mirror. “I still don’t feel like people are connecting the dots.”
The Asian American and Pacific Islander community, or AAPI, includes people with origins in Southeast Asia, the Pacific Islands and India. In Arizona, that is a voting bloc that consists of approximately 173,000 eligible voters or about 4.6% of the state’s electorate.
Midterm elections generally have lower voter turnout so Nguyen and RUN AAPI are attempting to engage younger AAPI voters who she said candidates have generally ignored, especially during midterm elections.
Run AAPI is trying to do so with a unique campaign that involves local AAPI artist Safwat Saleem that is sure to garner some attention.
“Give a F*ck About Midterms” is the name of their campaign which will be sending out a series of mailers to young AAPI voters encouraging them to vote in the upcoming election. The mailers aren’t your usual political mailers that include a list of policies, politician pictures or “vote yes” or “vote no” positions either.
“I feel totally dead inside, but I voted anyway,” a parody of an “I voted sticker” on one of the mailers reads. “So sick of this sh*t, but I voted anyway,” another reads.
RUN AAPI, which is headed entirely by young AAPI women, are doing the work themselves after several prominent political mailers refused to work with them on the campaign, Nguyen said.
“We’re not designing this for older people,” Nguyen said about the campaign’s tone, adding that, “I think what we commonly heard is that people were just feeling hopeless.”
Polling shows that sentiment rings true with the community as well, especially as attacks against the AAPI community continue.
Jennifer Chau, the executive director of Arizona Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Advocates said that a survey they did found that discrimination against the community and racial equity is the number one issue for voters.
“The discrimination piece is something that is still impacting our community,” Chau said. “That is something that we have been trying to grapple with.”
Chau and Linh plan to continue trying to engage their communities in politics and fight for what they believe is right for them. That even includes Chau’s organization joining a coalition of organizations suing to stop a law that they fear could disenfranchise naturalized citizens, such as those in the AAPI community.
“If we don’t do something different we are going to be in deep sh*t all over again,” Linh said.
PENNSYLVANIA: THE INTERCEPT
Asian American voters, who could decide close elections in states like Pennsylvania, are being deluged with incendiary, misleading ads sent to their mailboxes, phones, and screens by former Trump aides, including Stephen Miller, in the closing days of the campaign.
Leaders of the Asian American and Pacific Islander community in Pennsylvania have denounced the flood of digital ads and direct mail from Republican groups — which seek to blame Democrats for the spike in anti-Asian hate crimes since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic and cast efforts to combat anti-Black racism as a form of discrimination against white and Asian communities.
“Asian Americans, like many other communities of color and immigrant and refugee communities have had to fight through many barriers to vote — especially misinformation,” Wei Chen, an organizer in the Chinese American community in Philadelphia said in an interview on Friday. “The ads are new; the tricks are not.”
Chen, who co-founded the state’s Asian Pacific Islander Political Alliance, or API PA, said that mailers from Miller’s group America First Legal, falsely claiming that the Biden administration discriminates against Asian Americans, have started appearing in the Philadelphia suburbs.
The Asian American population has boomed in Nevada over the past three decades, and Asian Americans now make up about 10% of the state’s eligible voters, a larger share than in any state except Hawaii or California. Republican and Democratic leaders believe that Asian Americans could decide congressional races in the state that will help determine control in Washington — and they are devoting a lot of time and effort to reaching those voters.
“Everyone knows to pay attention to the Asian community now, because we’re here,” said Ms. Lin, the president and founder of the Asian Community Development Council, a community-based nonprofit in Las Vegas.
..... Unlike the Asian American communities in California and New York, which took root more than a century ago, Nevada’s is relatively new to the state. Many Asian Americans have moved to Nevada in recent years from California, seeking a lower cost of living and plentiful jobs in health care and hospitality. Others are businesspeople or real estate investors drawn by Nevada’s lack of a state personal income tax.
Today, Filipino Americans comprise about 43% of Nevada’s nearly 400,000 Asian residents, followed by Chinese Americans at 13%, according to APIA Vote and AAPI Data, which publishes demographic data and policy research on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders.
Churches, temples and cultural groups for Asians have proliferated. Many Asian Americans are members of the powerful Culinary Workers Union and the Service Employees International Union.
“Five years ago, we were invisible. Now, elected officials and candidates are coming to court the AAPIs because they know that we have the vote,” said Grace Vergara-Mactal, the executive director of the state branch of the service employees’ union, which represents about 19,000 workers, a quarter of them Asian, who work mainly in health care or government jobs.
CALIFORNIA: CNN
California’s 45th Congressional District, straddling Orange and Los Angeles counties, is as perfect an illustration of the diversity and power of Asian American voters as might be possible.
The contest features a duel between two Asian Americans: Jay Chen, a Democrat, is battling Michelle Steel, the Republican incumbent, for a House seat. And the Asian American voters who make up about a third of the district’s electorate will play a significant role in determining the outcome of the intensely competitive race.
“I think that this race epitomizes the diversity of the Asian American community. You’re seeing a Korean immigrant incumbent, who’s a Republican, being challenged by a Taiwanese American Democrat, and her strategy is to stoke anti-Chinese sentiment by campaigning in the Vietnamese immigrant community,” Connie Chung Joe, the CEO of Asian Americans Advancing Justice – Los Angeles, told CNN, referring to criticisms that Steel is seeking to tap into anxieties about China’s influence in the region by calling Chen “China’s Choice” in some of her attack ads. “And when you look at the district, you see that it’s heavily Asian American.”
Karthick Ramakrishnan, the founder and director of the nonprofit group AAPI Data and a professor of political science and public policy at the University of California, Riverside, echoed some of Joe’s sentiments.
“The Asian American vote, even though it’s not large, is big enough to make a difference,” he explained. “This district in California is part of that story.”
A Pew survey from August reported that 57% of English-speaking, Asian registered voters said that they’d likely back the Democratic candidate in the House race in their district, while only 26% said that they’d support the Republican candidate.
Per AAPI Data, Indian Americans are the most Democratic-leaning group among Asian American voters. Meanwhile, Vietnamese Americans lean more Republican than voters of other Asian backgrounds or heritages. (Notably, former President Donald Trump seemed to make slight gains with some Asian Americans in 2020.)
ARIZONA: ARIZONA MIRROR
Asian American voter turnout soared in 2020, especially in Arizona. Ahead of the midterms, advocacy groups are seeking to continue to energize the Asian American Pacific Islander community, a demographic that they say has been largely ignored by political campaigns.
“We’re the fastest growing racial demographic across the country,” RUN AAPI’s senior advisor, Linh Nguyen said in an interview with the Arizona Mirror. “I still don’t feel like people are connecting the dots.”
The Asian American and Pacific Islander community, or AAPI, includes people with origins in Southeast Asia, the Pacific Islands and India. In Arizona, that is a voting bloc that consists of approximately 173,000 eligible voters or about 4.6% of the state’s electorate.
Midterm elections generally have lower voter turnout so Nguyen and RUN AAPI are attempting to engage younger AAPI voters who she said candidates have generally ignored, especially during midterm elections.
Run AAPI is trying to do so with a unique campaign that involves local AAPI artist Safwat Saleem that is sure to garner some attention.
“Give a F*ck About Midterms” is the name of their campaign which will be sending out a series of mailers to young AAPI voters encouraging them to vote in the upcoming election. The mailers aren’t your usual political mailers that include a list of policies, politician pictures or “vote yes” or “vote no” positions either.
“I feel totally dead inside, but I voted anyway,” a parody of an “I voted sticker” on one of the mailers reads. “So sick of this sh*t, but I voted anyway,” another reads.
RUN AAPI, which is headed entirely by young AAPI women, are doing the work themselves after several prominent political mailers refused to work with them on the campaign, Nguyen said.
“We’re not designing this for older people,” Nguyen said about the campaign’s tone, adding that, “I think what we commonly heard is that people were just feeling hopeless.”
Polling shows that sentiment rings true with the community as well, especially as attacks against the AAPI community continue.
Jennifer Chau, the executive director of Arizona Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Advocates said that a survey they did found that discrimination against the community and racial equity is the number one issue for voters.
“The discrimination piece is something that is still impacting our community,” Chau said. “That is something that we have been trying to grapple with.”
Chau and Linh plan to continue trying to engage their communities in politics and fight for what they believe is right for them. That even includes Chau’s organization joining a coalition of organizations suing to stop a law that they fear could disenfranchise naturalized citizens, such as those in the AAPI community.
“If we don’t do something different we are going to be in deep sh*t all over again,” Linh said.
PENNSYLVANIA: THE INTERCEPT
Asian American voters, who could decide close elections in states like Pennsylvania, are being deluged with incendiary, misleading ads sent to their mailboxes, phones, and screens by former Trump aides, including Stephen Miller, in the closing days of the campaign.
Leaders of the Asian American and Pacific Islander community in Pennsylvania have denounced the flood of digital ads and direct mail from Republican groups — which seek to blame Democrats for the spike in anti-Asian hate crimes since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic and cast efforts to combat anti-Black racism as a form of discrimination against white and Asian communities.
“Asian Americans, like many other communities of color and immigrant and refugee communities have had to fight through many barriers to vote — especially misinformation,” Wei Chen, an organizer in the Chinese American community in Philadelphia said in an interview on Friday. “The ads are new; the tricks are not.”
Chen, who co-founded the state’s Asian Pacific Islander Political Alliance, or API PA, said that mailers from Miller’s group America First Legal, falsely claiming that the Biden administration discriminates against Asian Americans, have started appearing in the Philadelphia suburbs.
The flyers, which rely heavily on misleading headlines and text from right-wing news outlets, appeared after former Trump aides, who also work with Miller’s foundation, produced a deeply dishonest digital ad. That ad sought to blame President Joe Biden for the rise in racist attacks on Asian Americans, which first spiked in March 2020 when then-President Donald Trump started calling Covid-19 “the Chinese virus” and “the kung flu.”
With Asian American voters poised to play a deciding role in Pennsylvania’s midterm elections including in races for a new Governor and US Senator, former Trump staff have launched deceitful, racist, hateful mailers and digital ads aimed at suppressing the turnout of Asian voters.
The Asian American vote in Pennsylvania is the largest it has ever been at 250,000+ and growing consistently in both size and power. Asian Americans are the fastest-growing ethnic group in the US and make up 45% of newly naturalized citizens in Pennsylvania, and will play a significant role in determining Pennsylvania’s next Senator and Governor.
Facts about Asian voters in Pennsylvania from API PA’s voter analysis: 75% of eligible Asian American voters cast a ballot in 2020 (up more than 13 percentage points from 61.54% in 2016 and 57.1% in 2012), an unexpected doubling in turnout that contributed significantly to Biden’s 80,000 vote win margin.
50% of Asian American voters in Pennsylvania requested mail-in ballots in 2020, the highest percentage for any community, and Asian American voters had the 2nd highest vote by mail return rate of any community in PA
The Asian Pacific Islander Political Alliance (API PA) has knocked more than 120,000 doors and made more than 2.25 million phone calls in 15 languages to Asian American voters across the state. At least 15,000 of those phone calls were fully in the voter’s non-English language (crucial outreach, as 78% of Asian Pennsylvanians speak a language other than English at home).
API PA’s landmark language-accessible and culturally-competent voter outreach program results in a very high contact and conversion rate: At a recent phone bank by South Asians contacting South Asians, 90% of undecided voters committed to voting for API PA’s candidates by the end of the call.
Said Mohan Seshadri, Executive Director of Asian Pacific Islander Political Alliance (API PA):
“Asian American voters have massive power in Pennsylvania, and that power has rattled Republicans so much that they’re lobbing race-baiting misinformation at our people, trying to deceive and manipulate Asian American voters. Our folks have overcome many barriers to vote, and we’re combating these bad-faith politics by talking to tens of thousands of our voters, knocking hundreds of thousands of doors, and making millions of calls, speaking to voters in their language and making sure our folks have the facts they need to vote. Just like in 2020, when 75% of eligible Asian voters cast a vote, our ballots will do the talking.”
The digital ads and mailings are part of a coordinated campaign by the American First Legal Foundation, founded by Trump staffer Stephen Miller, who was the architect behind the Trump Administration’s family separation program, which led to widespread images of kids in cages that shocked the nation. Outside of Pennsylvania, mailers have been received in Arizona, Virginia, California, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Oklahoma, and Texas over the past week and digital and radio advertisements have also popped up across the country.
In 2020, API PA signed up more than 1,400 Asian Americans to volunteer and made 1.3 million calls to voters in PA, about half of which were to sign Asian voters up to vote by mail. API PA made an additional 55,000 in-language persuasion and GOTV calls to low-English proficiency Asian voters.
WISCONSIN: WPR.COM
Employees and volunteers at the Hmong American Center in Wausau helps those in the Hmong community register online.
The center emphasizes its elders often encourage everyone to exercise their right to vote, and the goal was to make that as easy as possible for those in the community.
"We know that the Hmong community, many here want to be involved, want to exercise their ability to vote, but they don't know how to actually get involved or register to vote," Yee Leng Xiong, the Executive Director, said.
Xiong says the Hmong and Asian population often make a marginal difference in elections, and regardless of who people are voting for, the center wants to make sure their voices are heard.
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