Democrats believe Asian American and Pacific Islanders are the most important voters for Joe Biden’s presidential campaign.
The Asian American electorate expanded by 139% in the past 20 years according to a 2020 PEW report. NBC reported that the AAPI community consists of more than 11 million eligible voters.
Tom Perez, chairman of Democratic National Committee pointed out in a virtual ton-hall held on Monday that “The Indian American vote — the APPI more broadly — can be an absolute difference maker.” According to Hindustan Times, Perez’s remarks suggested that AAPI voters, particularly Indian Americans of voting ages, are critical to “obliterate Trump’s lead [in reelections] and put Biden across the finishing line.”
The AAPI population is mostly concentrated in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. These were the exact three states that put Donald Trump in a disadvantageous situation in 2016. Trump only won these three states’ votes by 0.2, 0.7, and 0.8 percentage points, respectively.
AAPI Victory Fund, a PAC focusing on mobilizing AAPI voters, shared in an analysis that there are 125,000 Indian Americans eligible to vote in Michigan, 156,000 in Pennsylvania and 37,000 in Wisconsin.
Julie Chavez, senior adviser to the Biden campaign shared to Hindustan Times, “We know that there are important sectors of the Indian American community through out our country, throughout our battleground states.” Chavez added, “And we want to make sure we were engaging and connecting directly [with them].”
Biden’s strategic eyeing of eligible AAPI voters was further ascertained with his recent comments at at summit of Muslim voters on Monday. Fox News reported the presumptive Democratic nominee wished US schools taught more about Islam.
“I wish we taught more in our schools about the Islamic faith. I wish we talked about all the great confessional faiths. It’s one of the great confessional faiths,” Biden said at the Million Muslim Votes summit hosted by Emgage Action on Monday.
The former Vice President also commented how he would terminate Trump’s travel ban affecting Muslim-majority countries and blamed the White House for the “unconscionable rise in Islamophobia.”
Emgage Action, the largest Muslim American PAC in the US, endorsed Biden in April. Muslim American officials, including Representative Ilhan Omar and Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, signed a letter organized by the PAC on Monday to publicly support Biden, according to Fox News.
The letter said, “Our number one goal is to remove Donald Trump from office and to replace him with someone who can begin to heal our nation. A Biden administration will move the nation forward on many of the issues we care about.”
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