Poll: AANHPI voters seeking a role and participation in Texas politics

TEXAS TRIBUNE

Asian American voters want to be seen and heard by Texas politicians.

It may be serendipitous, but the crowning of two Filipino Americans to compete in the Miss Universe and Miss America pageants is symbolic of the changing demographics of Texas and the ongoing effort for political recognition of AANHPI communities.

Asian Americans, and to certain extent, Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders, are the fastest growing group of voters in the Lone Star state and are clamoring to have their voices heard and eager to cast their ballots.

“This is a community that is sort of up for grabs to bring in and to make sure that you’re listening to these communities and so that you’re shaping policy and messaging in your campaigns to serve them,” founding president Ashley Cheng told NBC. “But it feels like a missed opportunity. … We need to be listened to.”

Around 80% of AAPI Texans surveyed in a recent poll conducted Asian Texans for Justice say their interests “are not well represented in government.”

Both of the pageant queens -- Averie Bishop, who will represent the state in the Miss America contest, and R'Bonney Gabriel, who went on be crowned Miss USA and who is headed to the Miss Universe pageant next year -- have been outspoken about their support for a woman's right to choose and representation in US culture.

The defeat of two high-profile Congressional candidates in 2020 -- Filipino American Gina Ortiz and Indian American Sri Kulkarni -- has not dampened the effort to wield the ever-increasing power of their influential votes.

To get a sense of their growing numbers and activism, a poll was taken by Asian  Texans for Justice during the summer. What they found is that AAPI voters are not a silent minority on the margins of Texas politics. They have the potential to be the deciding margin for the future of Texas. About 64% of AAPI voters are eager to vote but finding voting information in their own language has been a hurdle.

FYI: To read the entire Asian Texans for Justice report, click here.

While the White population of Texas declined by 17.5%, a decrease of 3 million people, between 2010 and 2020, the Asian American population grew by 66.5%, from 1.1 to 1.85 million, states the report. The Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander population grew by 62%, from 48,000 to over 77,000. Texas has the third highest AAPI population, and the Asian American community is growing faster in Texas than nationwide; nationally, the Asian American population increase was just 38.6%.

Other key findings from the survey are:

The pageant winners' decidedly progressive views also reflect the state's AANHPI voters, 42% of whom are registered Democrats, the party out of power in red state Texas. Asian American Republicans make up 29% of the AANHPI vote. A large portion, 29%, describe themselves as independent voters, aligned with neither of the two major parties.

The overwhelming majority of AANHPI live in and around metropolitan centers. Only 1% of the respondents lived in what's described as rural areas.

The largest concentration of Asian Americans, 35% live in the Dallas-Fort Worth (DFW) metro area, 25% live in the Houston area, and 27% live in the San Antonio-Austin area.

The push to have an AAPI candidate for Congress for one of these areas was thwarted by the Republican-dominated Texas legislature. Instead of having a more powerful presence, the GOP lawmakers split the AANHPI voters so that their potential influence was also splintered and placed into districts dominated by Republicans. 

A lawsuit joined by the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, the Brennan Center and the ACLU protesting the partisan gerrymandering of the new Congressional districts was supposed to be heard at the end of September, well before the Midterm elections in November. However, the judge postponed the court date until after the midterms.

In conclusion, the report expressed hope that the influence of the AAPI community will continue to grow despite efforts to weaken influence and suppress the ability to vote. 

Despite the vast increase in AAPI voting, AAPIs in Texas are still underrepresented in voting turnout. In 2020, 282,000 registered AAPIs did not vote that year. And with young AAPIs turning 18 every day, these groups — and unregistered AAPIs — present opportunities to expand the electorate. 

The poll concluded that AAPI voters can move from being sidelined on the margins to being the deciding margin for the future of Texas politics and policy.

EDITOR'S NOTE: For additional commentary, news and views from an AANHPI perspective, follow @DioknoEd on Twitter.

The question of the day is: How will Asian Americans vote in New York's primary elections?

Tuesday, Aug. 23, is New York's Primary. Polls open 6 a.m. to 9 p.m.

The Asian American vote is being courted in New York's primary, August 23 

ANALYSIS

New York City voters have a chance to elect another Asian American to Congress but Yuh-Line Niou is running against big money and big names to represent two Chinatowns.

On August 5, 2022, Senator Anna M. Kaplan (D-North Hills) joined Korean American Civic Empowerment (KACE), Rainbow PUSH Coalition, and the Korean American Sanctuary Church Network (KASCN) for a rally in support of the New York State Asian American History Education Bill, which seeks to combat Asian hate through improved education.

Recognition of a specific issue such as teaching Asian American history is an example of how the state's political powers are recognizing the emerging influence of New York's Asian American community. Eighteen percent of Kaplan's Senatorial 7th District are Asian Americans who sought the suburban lifestyle offered on Long Island.

As New York voters go to the polls today, focus has been put on the Asian American electorate, which voted overwhelmingly Democratic in 2020. However, Republicans were able to sway enough of those voters to switch allegiances in the New York City mayoral race to raise alarm bells among Democrats.

While Manhattan and Queens voters went with Democratic candidates, the city's outlying districts voted for Republican Curtis Sliwa. Sliwa lost to Eric Adams but the signs of a wavering voting constituency were evident.

Even districts represented by an Asian Democrat, such as that of Queens Assemblymember Ron Kim, saw the rightward shift. “Education policy is certainly a part of that frustration. Working immigrant families believe their sacrifices and hard work are discounted by the Democratic Party establishment,” Kim said. “If you ignore us on education policy, you’re going to get a backlash.”

This growth in Asian voter participation in NYC was also spurred by community groups like the AAF-led AAPI Power Coalition. Their in-person, in-language, and culturally relevant outreach helped to mobilize so-called “unlikely voters,” — so much so that Asian voters who were outreached to increased their turnout by a whopping 73%. 

That successful outreach and result reveals the incredible political potential of the Asian community to shape the City they call home.

Over the last decade, Asian Americans have been the fastest-growing voting bloc in New York City—accounting for almost 18% of the city’s overall population. Over 27% of eligible Asian voters cast their ballots in last year’s mayoral primary, driven by strong grassroots organizing, an increase in Asian candidates, and the community’s reaction to hate crimes. 

This represented not only a record turnout in New York City’s 2021 mayoral primary, but also the highest Asian turnout in history for a local New York election, according to an analysis by the Asian American Federation. 

Turnout by Asian voters surpassed Black voters, at 26.5 percent, and Hispanics, at 17.4%. It's a dramatic shift since 2013, when Asian voters had the lowest turnout rate of any major racial group at 16.3%. White voters still had the highest turnout overall last year, with 36.4% of them casting primary ballots.

Authors of the report say the new stats dispel the myth that Asian New Yorkers are unlikely voters — and urge politicians to spend more effort courting the emerging group.

“We are a very powerful voting bloc,” said AAF ED Jo-Ann Yoo, noting that Asian Americans make up more than 10% of the population in 28 of the 51 City Council districts. “Our elected officials, no matter who they are…it’s to their peril if they ignore us.”

Yuh-Line Niou is running for Congress in New York's District 10.

DISTRICT 10: Yuh-Line Niou is running for Congress

A test of the Asian American electorate's emergence wil be in the contest for Congressional District 10. In the newly remapped Congressional District 10, Yuh-Line Niou has a chance to become New York's second Congressional representative. District 10 represents two Chinatowns, Manhattan's and Brooklyn's.

When the new Congressional maps were drawn up, it created an electorate with more than 20% Asian American voters. Already an Assemblymember, Niou was running for the NY Senate. When the new District 10 was created, the Taiwanese American saw an opportunity. She switched from running for the state Senate to the new US House seat. 

Niou's chances increased dramatically when former New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio dropped out of the race. The winner of the Aug. 23 primary will likely win the House seat in November because Democrats are the overwhelming majority of registered voters.

“I feel like it would have almost been like a disservice not to run, in some ways,” Niou, told Politico. “We really need to make sure that we have representation, because when we do have that representation, it changes a lot of the perspective and the lenses that we legislate in.”

Even with de Blasio's departure, Niou still faces some better known and well-funded  Democrats, frontrunner, Dan Holtzman, a Democratic stalwart for years and who has a personal fortune of $23 million and the endorsement of the NY Times; City Councilwoman Carlina Rivera; former House Rep. Elizabeth Holtzman and Rep. Mondaire Jones.

Jones candidacy is interesting is that he won his District 17 seat in New York City's northern suburbs in 2020. However, with the new districts, Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee chair Patrick Maloney decided to run for that district, leaving Jones out in the cold. Jones chose to run for the newly created District 10, which he has never represented. However, as the first openly gay black Congressmember, he has the backing of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.

It is a crowded and competitive field of candidates. Niou won her Assembly races with overwhelming majorities and her Assembly district lies entirely within the newly drawn Congressional District 10. A strong base, recognition of her local roots,  her popularity among progressives, her army of energetic, young volunteers, plus the two Chinatowns, could give New York a second Asian American representative in Congress.

“I see myself as the underdog, but I also see myself winning,” she said. “There’s a lot of erasure, especially when women and women of color run. There’s a lot of focus on when big names are running — or like when, you know, it’s men.”

DIVIDE AND CONQUER

Although in the minority, Republicans noticed the cracks emerge in the Asian American community over the school admission policies instituted by the NYC school board. In an effort to increase the diversity of its competitive high schools that prepare students for college, the school board launched policies that some thought discriminated against qualified Asian American students. 

The other high-profile issue was the perceived lack of action on the part of the NYPD to protect Asian Americans from the attacks in public places and a reluctance  by law enforcement officials to label the attacks as hate crimes (because of legal interpretations) fostering an atmosphere of fear, but, more troublesome was the promoting the perception that local government officials dominated by Democrats are ignoring the issue of anti-Asian hate.

The GOP hammered those wedge issues enough to almost nullify the tendency to vote for Democrats in the Chinese American community.

Noting the swing to the right by Asian voters after New York's 2021 elections, As a  forewarning to the 2022 midterms, Congresswoman Grace Meng, the only Asian American House member from New York, tweeted a warning to Democrats, “our party better start giving more of a shit about #aapi (Asian-American and Pacific Islander) voters and communities. No other community turned out at a faster pace than AAPIs in 2020.”

EDITOR'S NOTE: For additional commentary, news and views from an AANHPI perspective, follow @DioknoEd on Twitter. 

AAPI Vote 2018: Today ... we vote!

TODAY'S THE DAY!  VOTE!

Today, we exercise our right to express our views and let the powers in our city halls, state legislatures and our nation's capitol what we think and what we believe.

This is probably the most important midterm election in recent history. The vote is for the very soul of America. U.S. voters must decide if they like the direction this country is heading under Donald Trump  or if they want to Bring America Back Again; the America we grew up with

There have been numerous reports of voter suppression throughout the nation.

Georgia seems to be where the most egregious and obvious incidents are occurring but there have also been reports of voting obstacles in North Dakota, Kansas, Texas, Florida and elsewhere.

What is a provisional ballot? Did you know you can bring a translator to help you in the voting booth? Or that you can never be turned away just because of your ability to speak English?

Watch these videos to learn your rights as you cast your vote this year. Special thanks to the National Education Association for making the production of these videos possible.

選舉資料 (繁) (Chinese Traditional)→

选举资料 (简) (Chinese Simplified)→

THÔNG TIN BẦU CỬ (Vietnamese)→

투표와 관련된 정보 (Korean)→

IMPORMASYON SA PAGBOTO (Tagalog)→

Resources in other languages→

Asian American votes get short-changed by Electoral College

The  picture of the U.S. as weighted by the Electoral College

REPRINTED FROM ASAM NEWS

THE OLD ADAGE one person, one vote doesn’t seem to apply in the presidential election for people of color.

An analysis by the Center for Economic and Policy Research has found Asian American votes are only worth 0.93 of 1 vote, Latinos 0.91, Blacks 0.95 and Whites 1.0

How can that be? Under the electoral college system, a candidate gets all the state’s electoral college votes whether they win by one vote or one million. Under the system, large states such as New York and California are underrepresented.

Minorities are clustered in those larger states. White voters tend to live where their votes count more.

In Wyoming, there’s an electoral vote for every 195,000 residents. North Dakotans get one electoral vote for every 252,000 residents and Rhode Island gets one vote for every 264,000 votes. As the Center for Economic and Policy Research “In the electoral college, White votes matter more.”

You may have heard that Donald Trump won the electoral college vote, but Hillary Clinton won the popular vote. Those votes are still being counted, but right now, Hillary Clinton leads by 947,579 votes.

This is the second time in the last five presidential election where the presidential winner failed to win the popular vote. That’s lead to calls to change the system.

The group National Popular Vote is urging states to pass legislation to give their electoral votes to the candidate who wins the popular vote. That can only happen if the states with a majority of electoral votes pass the same legislation.

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