Asian-American Vote

THE ASIAN/PACIFIC-AMERICAN (APA) vote leans Democratic. Furthermore, the Democratic tilt of the APA vote is not nearly as strong as that which can be observed for any other racial minority group. The Los Angeles Times exit polls, in particular, show that in California the APA vote is a swing vote, choosing Republican candidates at certain times, and Democratic candidates at other times. APA majority communities exist in Hawaii and certain parts of California. Scholars of APA politics, Pei-Te Lien, Janelle Wong, and Margaret Conway produced the Pilot National Asian-American Political Survey (PNAAPS) dataset, which focuses on a handful of metropolitan areas in which APAs reside in large numbers. Most other datasets, even the American National Election Study (ANES), provides an APA sample size that is far too small to yield any statistically meaningful results.

Most APA sub-groups have more self-identified Democrats than self-identified Republicans, but this tilt varies widely in degree among the groups. The PNAAPS shows that of all the APA sub-ethnic groups, only Vietnamese-Americans have more self-identified Republicans than self-identified Democrats. Of the other sub-ethnic groups, Japanese-Americans tend to be the most Democratic, followed by Filipinos, Koreans, and Chinese. Reasons for these trends in party identification vary among all of these ethnic groups; whereas Korean and Vietnamese Americans are more likely to cite gang violence as their biggest concerns, other sub-ethnic groups are likely to cite immigration and outreach as higher priorities. APAs have also demonstrated a collective desire for improved race relations among APAs and between APAs and non-APAs.

Both major parties in the United States have neglected to court the APA vote, probably because they see APAs as too small of a minority to make any electoral difference. Although in the aggregate, the number of APAs may be small nationally, in some states they constitute a key swing vote with the numbers to make the difference. The 80/20 Initiative, an influential APA political organization, has sought to garner sufficient political attention for Asian Americans and their communities from political candidates. Since its inception, 80/20 has endorsed George Bush's opponents (Al Gore in 2000 and John Kerry in 2004), because Bush and the national Republican Party will only make vague commitments to the removal of glass ceilings for Asian Americans in the workplace. As national polls have indicated, APAs collectively voted for Bush's Democratic opponent by a margin of anywhere from 15 to 30 percentage points in both presidential elections. 80/20 credits itself with mobilizing enough APA voters to deliver a “bloc vote.” Nevertheless, 80/20 still refers to itself publicly as a nonpartisan organization, and continues to claim that outreach efforts and commitments to APA issues from both the Democratic and Republican parties are unsatisfactory.

There are some data that suggest that while most APAs favor Democratic candidates, they may not be dedicated loyalists to the Democratic Party; not even 80/20, which campaigned vigorously for Democrats in 2000 and 2004, wants its members to blindly vote Democratic. Recent election data shows that a majority of APAs voted for Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger (R-CA) and for Governor Linda Lingle (R-HI), in spite of the fact that majorities of other racial minority groups supported the Democratic candidate in those races.

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