A crowd of AAPI voters rallied at a park in Philadelphia’s Cambodia Town in support of Vice President Kamala Harris just days before the election.
The rally was one of many events to organize Southeast Asian voters in support of the Democratic presidential candidate.
Some attendees arrived Saturday from outside Pennsylvania, like San Francisco and Washington, D.C.
A local Cambodian-American business community organized the events, working with Bel Leong-Hong, chairwoman of the AAPI Caucus of the Democratic National Committee, per The Straits Times.
The rally featured various speakers, including Acting Secretary of Labor Julie Su.
“The Southeast Asian community, even within the Asian American community, can feel forgotten,” Su told The Times. “Showing up where people live, work and play, and saying, ‘You matter to me, you’re going to matter to a Harris administration’, was really important.”
Volunteers knocked on doors and a Buddhist temple hosted a community forum. This is one of many initiatives in Pennsylvania to mobilize AAPI voters.
Mohan Seshadri, executive director of the Asian Pacific Islander Political Alliance, told The Philadelphia Inquirer that the organization also knocked on doors — 300,000 to be exact — to speak to voters in 22 languages, as well as sent out mail in 10 languages and digital ads in at least six languages.
There are almost 334,000 eligible AAPI voters in Pennsylvania, according to The Times. The Inquirer reported they make up more than 3% of the Keystone State’s voting bloc.
For Harris, AAPI voters are key in passing the margin of victory in the country’s largest swing state. President Biden won the state by a narrow margin in the 2020 election, securing 50.01% of the vote.
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