By Louis Chan
AsAmNews National Correspondent
A multilingual survey of 2,000 Asian American and Pacific Islander voters found that the economy and jobs, terrorism and racial discrimination are their three most important issues entering the election.
Both terrorism and the economy ranked high in a recent poll of the general electorate as well by the Pew Research Center , but AAPIs rank racism and discrimination much higher-third versus tenth.
10 percent of the AAPIs polled by the National AAPI Survey say racism is the most important issue facing the country. Six percent also rank it as the most important issue facing them personally.
It’s impossible to make a direct comparison to the findings of the Pew poll because the question wasn’t exactly the same. In that survey, voters were asked which issues are “very important.” 63 percent named “treatment of racial minorities.” That was ranked tenth, much behind the number one issue, the economy at 84 percent and the number two issue terrorism at 80 percent.
26 percent of AAPIs voters in the Asian American survey say the economy is the MOST important issue facing the country. 12 percent ranked terrorism as the MOST important.
On policy issues, the National Asian American Survey conducted August 10 to September 29, 2016 found 60 percent support the Affordable Care Act. 66 percent support greater government spending to help undergraduates pay for education, 62 percent oppose a government ban on Muslims, 44 percent support accepting Syrian refugees into the U.S. and 35 percent oppose the idea, and only 33 percent support the legalization of marijuana in small amounts.
The poll surveyed by telephone 274 Asian Indians, 59 Cambodians, 281 Chinese, 201 Filipinos, 151 Hmong, 286 Koreans, 147 Japanese, 295 Vietnamese and 291 Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders.
Interviews were conducted in English, Mandarin, Cantonese, Tagalog, Hindi, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Hmong and Cambodian..
72 percent of the interviews were conducted by landlines versus 28 percent mobile phones.
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