Poll: Harris support surges among Asian American voters

(This story has been updated with additional data and interviews)

By Sacha Wedner

Vice President Kamala Harris’s favorability rating with Asian American voters increased by 18 points since spring, a new poll released this morning by AAPI Data reveals. 

This new survey provides insight on how Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders plan to vote this November. AAPI Data had previously released their 2024 Asian American Voter survey in the summer, which was conducted from April to May, back when President Joe Biden was the Democratic nominee. But Harris as the Democratic nominee, this new poll shows how AAPI voters are responding to that shift. 

62% of Asian Americans say that they have a favorable view of Harris, compared to the 35% whose view is unfavorable. She is also more popular than Donald Trump, with 70% having an unfavorable opinion and 28% expressing a favorable opinion of the former president. 

66% of the 1161 voters polled say they will vote for Harris versus just 28% for Trump. This is an 18 point increase for Harris, compared to Biden’s 46%.

Harris’ popularity among Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander voters is comparatively much weaker.

The poll included an oversampling of 61 NHPI voters with a +/- margin of error of 18.2%.

Favorability rating for Kamala Harris by ethnicity:

42% of NHPI voters have an unfavorable view of Harris compared to just a 32% very unfavorable view of Trump.

Favorability rating for Donald Trump by ethnicity:

Trump leads among NHPI voters over Harris 52% – 39%. However, that is within the margin of error of 18.2%.

When asked about which candidate better represents their background and culture, 56% of AANHPI voters said that they were better represented by Harris, 14% said that they were better represented by Trump, and 7% said they felt equally represented by both.

Democratic Vice President candidate, Tim Walz, is also more popular among Asian Americans compared to his counterpart, JD Vance. 56% of Asian American voters have a favorable opinion of Walz, as opposed to 18% who have an unfavorable opinion. According to the survey, 26% of Asian American voters said that they didn’t know enough to form an opinion.

As for JD Vance, only 21% of Asian Americans had a favorable opinion, opposed to the 58% that didn’t. 22% of voters said that they didn’t know enough to form an opinion.

The survey also showed that Asian American voters are more likely to say that they will be voting with absolute certainty, as compared to April-May of this year, with the survey showing that 77% of Asian American voters saying they will “absolutely” vote. That’s up from 68% in spring. 18% of Asian Americans said that they “fairly certain” will vote, 6% said that they “fairly certain” will not vote, and 6% said that they will “absolutely” not vote. 

Harris’ identity as a woman is more important to Asian American voters with 38% describing it as “extremely” or “very” important compared to 27% who say the same about her South Asian or Asian identity.

For aspects of identity deemed most important by voters, 42% of AANHPI voters said gender, followed by race at 36%, age at 35%, and religion at 27%.

The survey showed that the growth in voters and people willing to vote is correlated with changes in party contact. 

Asian American voters are far more likely to be contacted by the Democratic Party as opposed to the Republican Party, with 62% of Asian American voters, saying that they’ve been contacted by the Democratic Party, while 42% said that they were contacted by the GOP. 

Compared to the April-May survey, 45% of Asian American voters reported being contacted by the Democratic Party, while 38% said that they were contacted by the Republican Party. 27% of Asian Americans said that they were not contacted by either of the two parties, a decrease from 42% from April-May. 

“What we’ve also seen is, especially with the Kamala Harris campaign, where they recently have been releasing three different videos, in-language, advertising, that is where we’re seeing a lot of that contact.”, explained Christine Chen, the Executive Director and Co-Founder of APIAVote. 

“In addition, since the DNC conventions, we’ve also seen the formations of different affinity groups like the South Asians for Harris, Korean Americans for Harris, Filipino Americans for Harris, and other entities like that”, Chen added. “So this is where we’re seeing a lot of work being done by volunteers who are self-organizing and working with the campaigns to go ahead and do outreach as well.”.

As for concerns regarding the November election, the top issue that AANHPI voters were concerned about was fake or false information regarding candidates at the polls, at 50%. The next concerning issue at 47% was violence after the elections, followed by legal challenges to the election at 42%, and threats of violence at the polls, at 36%.

Some of the lower-level concerns for AAPI voters were voter fraud at the polls at 34%, not having their vote counted, at 32%, Fake or false information on where to vote, at 29%, and finally, being prevented from voting at 29%.  

The AAPI voter survey also asked participants if they would forfeit candidate support if said candidate didn’t share their views on certain issues. Of these issues, racism or discrimination was the highest voted at 72%, followed by abortion policy at 63%, crime or violence at 62%, and gun policy at 60%.

“The findings we have mirror those that we found several months ago,” said Karthick Ramakrishnan, the executive founder and director of AAPI data. “And this again, it’s not surprising to me anymore. The first time I saw it, it was surprising to me that racism and discrimination is at the top of the heap.” 

“And so, what that tells me is that even if voters are dissatisfied with the economic performance, or say, crime issues, with the Democratic Party, the racial dog whistles and racial bullhorns coming out of the Republican side especially presidential candidate Trump and vice-presidential candidate Vance is going to hurt the Republican Party in terms of being unable to attract Asian American and Pacific Islander votes”

For other issues, AANHPI voters voted 59% on immigration, the economy and climate change at 54%, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict at 39%.

“The Israeli-Palestinian conflict, as we found several months ago, while there may be a lot of disagreement, by both parties, but mostly within the Democratic party, on what needs to be done.”, explained Ramakrishan. “It does not seem to be a litmus test or a single voter issue”.

51% of AANHPI voters believed that Harris would better handle U.S. relations with India, while 22% Trump would do better. 47% said Harris would do a better job handling U.S relations with China, with 28% favoring Trump on the matter. Finally, regarding U.S. relations with Taiwan, 49% of voters favored Kamala, while 23% preferred Trump.

Questions regarding civic engagement activities over the past six months showed that 41% of AANHPI voters, 15% had donated to a presidential campaign, 10% had donated to other political candidates, and 9% had volunteered for a presidential campaign.

“What this data shows is that the long-term trends we’ve been seeing among AAPI voters  — who’ve seen record-breaking turnout and levels of enthusiasm since 2016 — are continuing.”, said Chen in an email interview with AsAmNews. “It also disproves the theory by some that Asian American voters were shifting towards Republicans. That’s clearly not the case, at least for presidential cycles where the top candidates drive the political narrative up and down the ballot.”.

The AAPI Voter survey was conducted between September 3 – 9 by NORC at the University of Chicago, with NORC’s Amplify AAPI panel being used as the sample source. The survey was offered in English, Mandarin, Cantonese, Vietnamese, and Korean. 

The survey was administered by two modes depending on the respondent’s preference provided during panel recruitments. The first mode was self-administered by the respondent online via the Web, and the second mode was administered over the phone by a live interviewer. The live interviewer surveys were conducted only in English.

All of the responders were Asian American, Pacific Islander, and Native Hawaiian voters either 18 years of age or older, with oversamples of both citizens and registered voters.  The data gathered from them was weighed by Census Region, ethnicity, education, age by gender, and ethnicity by nativity. The survey’s overall margin of error was +/- 4.7 percent.

“Conducting surveys among the AAPI community has historically been very challenging and expensive, since such a higher percentage primarily speak another language other than English.”, mentions Chen. “This caused many pollsters to dramatically undercount AAPI voters in 2020 polls, for instance or only poll them in English.”

“But in the last few years, an enormous amount of resources have gone into building more efficient and cost-effective methods of conducting surveys among the AAPI community.”

Asian Americans have become a rapidly growing group of eligible voters in the U.S over the past twenty years, growing by 15% over the past four years, and turning out in record numbers in every single election since 2016. In the 2020 election, a rise in Asian American voters, especially first-time voters, in battleground states, were key to Biden’s victory.

The full voter survey report and webinar can be accessed through APIAVote’s website.

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