Seriously though, don't ignore the Asian American vote In 2020, says Hasan Minhaj

NETFLIX

Hasan Minhaj and Andrew Yang interview an Asian American voter.

Making someone laugh gets them to lower their walls and sometimes, insight breaks through. Hasan Minhaj's Patriot Act on Netflix does that in his latest episode released Dec. 1, "Don't Ignore The Asian Vote in 2020."

Using disarming humor, the Sacramento-born Indian American, jabs elbows in the ribs of Asian American voters and the major political parties of the US.

"It's pander season, baby," Minhaj opens.

“Despite our growing numbers, politicians and the media ignore us,” Minhaj says.

What a dilemma: Asian American voters have voter turnout because they are mostly ignored by the Democrats and Republicans. On the other hand, the Dems and GOP don't bother with Asian American voters because they don't vote.

Using statistics from AAPI Data, Minhaj points out how Asian American communities have turned elections in Virginia and Orange County, CA.

He interviews Andrew Yang's about his beef with MSNBC and Cory Booker about reaching out to his Asian American electorate in New Jersey. 

Minhaj points out the importance of immigration policy to the diverse Asian American communities and suggests that a good slogan for a candidates is "I'll let your cousing in."

With less than a year left before Americans pick their President, it behooves Asian American voters to pay attention to the primaries and the candiadtes. For Democrats and Republicans, they ignore Asian Americans at their own peril. That's no joke.

Patriot Act is available for streaming on Netflix.

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Tulsi Gabbard will skip the next Democratic debate even if she qualifies

SCREEN CAPTURE / ABC

Tulsi Gabbard criticizes the Democratic Party's criteria for the debates.

Even if Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-HI, gets the one more poll she needs to qualify for the December Democratic debate, she says she won't take part.

"For a number of reasons, I have decided not to attend the December 19th "debate" — regardless of whether or not there are qualifying polls," Gabbard tweeted. "I instead choose to spend that precious time directly meeting with and hearing from the people of New Hampshire and South Carolina."

She has been critical of the criteria put up by the Democratic National Committee that the candidates have to meet in order to participate in the series of debates. The debate on Dec. 19 will be the sixth time the qualifiers meet on stage.

So far, former Vice President Joe Biden, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass.; Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.; South Bend, Ind. Mayor Pete Buttigieg, Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn.; and tech billionaire Tom Steyer have qualified for the next debate. The rest of the large field is left out in the cold.

“There’s been a lack of transparency in that whole process about which polls are selected, which aren’t, which they’re seeing as qualifying, which ones are actually polling,” Gabbard told Hill.TV as she struggled to meet the criteria in an earlier debate.

“Spending time with voters in Iowa and New Hampshire, they don’t take kindly to seeing how a few people in Washington, D.C. at the DNC are trying to be the gatekeepers,” she said.

She wasn't the only candidate questioning the hurdles set by the Democrats.

Sen. Cory Booker rebuked the DNC for letting “elites” and “money” decide which candidates gain the opportunity to occupy the debate stage. 

"I'm a little upset with the (Democratic National Committee) right now because they seem to be trying to make the decisions for you," Booker told a Sunday crowd gathered in a Dubuque bar.

Booker also made note that the New Hampshire Democratic Party voted last weekend to send the DNC a letter urging the party to reconsider the qualifying criteria for the debate to ensure greater diversity and give voters "the greatest opportunity" to hear from the candidates.

The fact that the candidates who have qualified for the December debate are all white sharpened the flaws of the DNC's attempt to winnow down the crowd of candidates that at one point numbered 24.

Booker, who is one of two African Americans running for president, pointed out that there are now more billionaires among the candidates than there are African Americans, after Sen. Kamala Harris, D-CA, dropped out of the race.

Booker and Gabbard, who is Samoan American, and the other candidates of color, Julian Castro and Andrew Yang have also not met the DNC criteria. Yang needs one more poll where he has garners 4% to qualify.

DNC spokesperson Xochitl Hinojosa told the Washington Times that the party’s debate requirements were “inclusive." 

She asserted that historically, candidates who have polled lower than 4% in the primary season have never been selected as the Democratic presidential nominee. “While we are legally required to have objective criteria for each debate, our qualifying criteria has stayed extremely low throughout this entire process,” she said in an emailed statement. “We’ve never seen a political party take this many steps to be inclusive.”

However, "historically," there have never been this many candidates running for president, which greatly dissipates potential supporters and donors among the diverse presidential hopefuls representing a wide political spectrum.

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Andrew Yang plans big surprise during the Democrats' debate

Candidate Andrew Yang plans a surprise during the debate in Houston.

Finally, Andrew Yang has the mainstream media's attention.

Yang's campaign sent a tweet to The Daily Beast's Sam Stein that at Thursday night's Democratic presidential debate in Houston, the candidate is going to do "something no presidential candidate has ever done before in history."

By this mysterious tease, with no other specific details, mainstream media's interest piqued up. Speculation is rampant. 

Will he be the first candidate to drop out during a televised debate? In so doing, will he endorse one of his rivals? Will he crowdsurf onto the room like he did last week at the AAPI Presidential Forum? Will he jump into a mosh pit full of his Yang Gang supporters? Will he announce the score of the football game between the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Carolina Panthers, which will be airing at the same time as the debate?

Yang has had trouble getting mainstream media to give him the attention given to candidates that he has outperformed in the polls. It seems the only time he gets air time is when he's doing something no other presidential candidate has done: line dancing with senior citizens; crying in response to a mother who had lost her son to gun violence, challenging Trump in basketball, and the aforementioned crowd surfing.

Yang has been unable to move beyond 2% (in some polls, 3%) in most polls so he's been stuck with the "long-shot" monicker.

This debate will feature the top ten hopefuls on the same stage. Previous debates have had to split the candidates into two separate nights.

While most eyes are anxious to see how frontrunner Joe Biden and his closest rival, Elizabeth Warren, interact. Bernie Sanders, Kamala Harris and Pete Buttigieg need to insert themselves among the top four or five to gain momentum towards the next debate in October.

The candidates who poll in the single digits, including Amy Klobuchar, Cory Booker, Beto O'Rourke and Julian Castro to have a "moment," do or say somethingmake an impression with the audience. And watch out for that Asian guy who loves MATH.

To prepare for the debate, Yang shows his moves on the basketball court in the video below:

What: The third debate between candidates for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination

When: 5-8 p.m. PT Thursday, Sept. 12

Channels: ABC and Univision

Streaming: The debate will stream on the ABC app and the ABC News Live channel, available on Facebook, Twitter, Roku, Hulu, AppleTV, Amazon Fire TV, YouTube, Apple News and the ABC News, “Good Morning America” and FiveThirtyEight websites and phone apps. Univision News will also livestream the debate on its digital platforms, including Facebook, YouTube and Periscope.

Democratic Debate: Harris gets rocked, Gabbard attacks, Yang impresses

Kamala Harris left, appeared to be caught off guard by Tulsi Gabbard's attacks.

Former Vice President Joe Biden must have been secretly smiling during the second night of the Democratic presidential debate when Rep. Tulsi Gabbard attacked Sen. Kamala Harris' record as California's Attorney General.

The second night of the Democratic debates held in Detroit Wednesday night (July 31)  produced fireworks and featured the four candidates of color, former HUD Secretary Julian Castro, entrepreneur Andrew Yang, Gabbard and Harris

"Senator Harris says she's proud of her record as a prosecutor and that she'll be a prosecutor president, but I'm deeply concerned about this record," said Gabbard, the Samoan American representing Hawaii. "There are too many examples to cite but she put over 1,500 people in jail for marijuana violations and then laughed about it when she was asked if she ever smoked marijuana. "

"She blocked evidence that would have freed an innocent man from death row until the courts forced her to do so," Gabbard continued, "she kept people in prison beyond their sentences to use them as cheap labor for the state of California."

Surprisingly, Harris seemed unprepared to respond to the accusations which have been raised since the day Harris announced his candidacy in Oakland. 

Gabbard's attack was predictable based on her criticism of the Indian American senator since Harris caught Biden off-guard with her criticism of Biden's association with anti-segregationist legislators in the first round of the Democratic debates.

"Kamala Harris is not qualified to serve as commander in chief and I can say this from a personal perspective as a soldier," Gabbard said during an Fox News interview  Tuesday. "She's got no background or experience in foreign policy and she lacks the temperament that is necessary for commander in chief."

Harris response avoided answering the accusations directly. She said that she had “personally” always opposed the death penalty. Harris said she was “proud” of her record as California attorney general, drawing a contrast to Gabbard’s job as a legislator.

“I am proud of making a decision, not just give fancy speeches, or be in a legislative body and give speeches on a floor but actually doing the work of being in the position to use the power that I had to reform a system that is badly in need of reform,” Harris said.

From the outset, Harris was on the defensive as candidate after candidate questioned the feasibility her healthcare plan which she outlined earlier this week. Harris was on her heels the rest of the night in contrast to the Miami debate when she was confident and on the offensive.

True to his word, Yang was more aggressive and more animated during the debate. CNN allowed him 8.3 minutes of airtime compared to the 3 minutes in the Miami debate. Still, it was the least time among the candidates. Biden, who was under attack from various rivals most of the night, was given 21 minutes, the most among the 10 candidates on stage. 

In almost all Yang's responses; from foreign policy to health care to immigration to the economy, he repeatedly turned his answers to the policy proposal that has given him the most attention -- his "Freedom Dividend," that would give $1000 a month to every American over 18.

SCREEN CAPTURE

Although Andrew Yang did well in the debate, his bid to become POTUS is still a long-shot.

In his opening statement, the businessman received a positive reaction from the crowd when he said, "We need to do the opposite of much of what we're doing right now, and the opposite of Donald Trump is an Asian man who likes math."

During the debate, Yang, who considers automation a primary challenge for American workers, garnered both cheers from the Detroit crowd and reactions on social media when mentioning the impact of automation on America's manufacturing jobs and how "immigrants are being scapegoated" while robots fill factories.

With his lectern next to Kamala Harris, Yang pointed out that he's polling better than a slew of politicians. He may not be in the top tier of candidates bu he's polling better than Marianne Williamson, Rep. Seth Moulton, Gov. Jay Inslee, Rep. Tim Ryan, Gov. John Hickenlooper, Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, Rep. John Delaney, Mayor Bill de Blasio, Gov. Steve Bullock, Sen. Michael Bennet, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, and on par with former HUD Secretary Julian Castro.

Biden, who remains the frontrunner, was criticized continually throughout the debate for past policies, but he was better prepared than he was in the first round of debates held in June. Often in his answers, Biden appeared to have lost his train of thought and cut short his response.

Sen. Cory Booker abandoned his furrowed brow look from the first debate and was much more animated, smiling and acting more at ease and allowing. He was effective in questioning Biden's criminal justice efforts. Booker said that Biden's get-tough positions was responsible for much of the inequality in the criminal justice system today.

The Democratic debates -- the first night was Tuesday -- in Detroit showcased the differences between the candidates and the divide between the moderates and progressives within the party especially around the issue of healthcare, which took up the most time -- 39 minutes -- of the 2-hour, 45 minute debate.

While Harris has qualified for the next debate in September to be hosted by ABC, it could be the end of the line for several of the lesser known candidates struggling to rise in the pols. At the time of this writing, neither Gabbard or Yang have met the qualifications put forth by the Democratic National Committee.

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Cory Booker tops fundraising from AAPI political donors

TWITTER /  CORY BOOKER

Senators Kamala Harris and Cory Booker are rivals for the Democratic nomination for POTUS.

VIEWS FROM THE EDGE & ASAM NEWS

A surprising finding of who the AAPI communities are supporting showed that Sen. Cory Booker has attracted the most money from Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders.

The New Jersey Democrat beat out all Three Asian American candidates running for POTUS. Hawaii's Rep. Tulsi Gabbard came in second, followed by third-place finishser Sen. Kamala Harris of California.

Sen Bernie Sander of Vermont and entrepreneur Andrew Yang rounded out the top 4th and 5th spots respectively.

One can surmise that Booker is perhaps more familiar (and admired) among the AAPI communities in New Jersey than Harris is known among the larger AAPI communities in California.

Gabbard's strong showing among Indian Americans might also indicate that religion is a strong factor in deciding who to support in 2020. Gabbard is Hindu.

An analysis by researcher and PhD candidate Sono Shah for AAPI Data Used data made public by the Federal Elections Committee, Shah determined Booker has raised just under $395,000 from Asian Americans. Gabbard has received $390,000 in support from Asian Americans while Sen. Harris has generated $322,000.

Far behind in the money race is the rest of the crowded field with Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-VT), $124,000 and Andrew Yang, $119,000, topping the next tier. Sanders polled very well with Asian Americans in the 2016 election, while Yang has generated more buzz and support than most analysts expected.
My takeaway is that the umbrella group known collectively as AAPI is a whole lot more complicated than outsiders might assume. Any candidate that sees the AAPI communities as a single monolithic, amorphous group would make an huge erroneous, and perhaps fatal, mistake.

Shah has a two-part analysis the the valuable data gathered by AAPI Data, an increasingly invaluable resource for anyone looking at the AAPI communities, either as a whole or separately.

It's way too early to make any concrete conclusions and these findings are likely to shift as the number of candidates is winnowed down. However, there are trends that are interesting enough to point out.

Although a relatively new community, Indian Americans, have the largest immigration rate among new immigrants coming to the U.S., surpassing Chinese and Latinos.

Their quick adaption to U.S. politics can be seen in the 2016 elections that put five Indian Americans in Congress.  By comparison, Filipino Americans who have the same English fluency and have been politically active just as long as Indian immigrants, have only two Fililpino American congress members.

Shah's takeaways:

• In terms of total dollars, more than 60% of Asian contributions went to three candidates, Cory Booker, Tulsi Gabbard, and Kamala Harris.
• Tulsi Gabbard has relied heavily on Asian donors, with Asian donors accounting for more than 44% of the individual contributions she has raised this quarter.
• Similarly, more than 35% of the money Andrew Yang has raised from individual donations have come from Asian donors.
• Donors in California, New York, and New Jersey make up the vast majority of Asian contributions.

The vast majority of support from Asian Americans for Booker comes from his home state of New Jersey, along with New York and California.

Harris has large support among Indian Americans, but many are not aware of her heritage. Her father is Jamaica and her mother is from India.

Gabbard and Yang have not polled well in national polls, yet Yang has proven proficient in raising money, especially considering his name recognition is not large.

NBC points out that FEC data does not capture contributions under $200, which could have potentially skewed Shah’s study. 

In addition, the study by Shah is based on surname, which means Shah may have overlooked many Filipino Americans who have Latino surnames and Asian American voters who married outside their race or may be biracial and have teh surnames of their spouses.

READ the two-part analysis here and here.

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