Experts believe Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander communities could influence the 2024 elections.
Asian Americans are the fastest growing ethnic group with an 81% increase from 2000 to 2019, according to Pew Research Center. Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders also saw significant growth at 70% and 61%, respectively.
With a growing population, numbers of eligible Asian American voters are on the rise, rapidly growing by 15%, or about 2 million voters, in the past four years.
By November 5, there will be approximately over 15 million eligible Asian American voters. This influx of voters suggests that Asian Americans could significantly impact political races and address issues important to AANHPI communities as they cast their ballots.
Important issues that tend to resonate most with Asian Americans include jobs and the economy, inflation, healthcare, crime, education, Social Security and Medicare, cost of housing, national security, gun control, and immigration reforms, reports AAPI Data.
Data also highlights that 68% of Asian Americans reported concerns about discriminatory hate crimes and harassment.
Despite Asian American voters’ potential to significantly shape the political landscape, they remain a demographic that is often overlooked by political campaigns.
A recent survey by AAPI Data reports that 42% of Asian Americans claim both the Democratic and Republican parties have failed to contact and include them in their outreach efforts.
“What these results show is that despite Asian American voters’ growing influence and decisive role in recent elections, they are largely still being ignored by campaigns and political parties,” stated Christine Chen, Co-Founder and CEO of APIAVote, in an interview with AAPI Data. “And while there’s little evidence of a broad political realignment of Asian American voters, recent elections have shown that their political identities are more tenuous than their voting habits imply, and that when candidates make concerted efforts to engage them, Asian American voters are persuadable.”
In a discussion with Peninsula 360 about Asian American voter turnout in the 2020 election, Chen reported that 21% were first-time voters. Battleground states were hit with a significant wave of first-time voters, where 26% of Georgia’s vote came from Asian American voters.
Campaigns and political parties neglecting to connect with their ever-growing AANHPI constituency has also left space for misinformation, especially within the Vietnamese American community.
Seeking to promote educated votes, Dr. Tung Nguyen founded the Progressive Vietnamese American Organization, or PIVOT, which provides nonpartisan, bilingual anti-disinformation resources such as VietFact Check.
“There is rampant misinformation and disinformation in our communities, both in English, but especially in Vietnamese, with much of that bad content coming out on YouTube,” said Nguyen to Ethnic Media Services.
Nguyen then went on to reveal that Vietnamese Americans, one of the most conservative groups within the AANHPI community, are slowly favoring the Democratic party, with 25% identifying as Independent.
This 25% of Independent voters opens the door for candidates to persuade votes and earn their party new constituents.
At a news briefing with Ethnic Media Services, Shekar Narasimhan, the founder and president of AAPI Victory Fund, spoke on the untapped power of the AANHPI vote.
“The AANHPI vote is very significant,” said Narasimhan. “I prefer actually, instead of saying that we are the margin of victory, to saying now that we are the reason for victory.”
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