Asian American Votes, Securing Democrats, Forever. By Brian Simpson
Ironically, this story is quoted without comment in American Renaissance, supposedly pro-white, but also championing the East Asian IQ/everything superiority thesis. Should they then worry that Asian migration to the US will secure Democrat power forever, along with open corruption and electoral fraud? Surely not given their fetishism about IQ, which I have argued in earlier posts, is not justified anyway, but more of this in other papers.
“When Long Tran, a liberal organizer of Vietnamese descent, hosted a meet-and-greet for Georgia Democrat Jon Ossoff in early 2017, he was hoping in part to engage more Asian Americans like himself in politics.
Not a single other Asian person showed up to his event.
Nearly four years later, that has dramatically changed. Georgia’s hand recount and vote certification confirmed that Asian American and Pacific Islander voters — who make up the fastest-growing demographic in Georgia — helped swing the state for the Democrats for the first time since 1992.
While AAPI voters comprise only about 4 percent of Georgia’s population, that amounts to roughly 238,000 eligible voters, more than enough to determine races in the narrowly divided state. Georgia saw a 91 percent increase in AAPI voter turnout over 2016, according to an analysis by the Democratic firm TargetSmart, and exit polls showed Asian American voters preferred Joe Biden to President Trump by 2 to 1.
Strong turnout among Latino and Black voters also contributed to Biden’s win, in Georgia and across the country. But the near-doubling of turnout among Asian American voters — who historically have had some of the lowest turnout nationally — suggests a far-reaching change that could resonate for decades.
That change also played out in swing states like Arizona, Michigan and Nevada, where changing demographics and rapidly diversifying suburbs are reconfiguring the political map. In every battleground state, the AAPI community increased its turnout more than any other group, and in Georgia and Arizona, traditionally red states that went for Biden, the vote was decided by a margin that was less than the increase in AAPI voters, TargetSmart noted.
“We are that new electorate,” said Stephanie Cho, executive director of the Atlanta chapter of Asian Americans Advancing Justice. “Us along with Black women voters, along with Latino voters, along with young people, really have changed the trajectory of what Georgia looks like.”
In Gwinnett County outside Atlanta, which has the state’s largest AAPI population, more than 30,000 AAPI voters cast their ballots early this year compared with 9,500 in 2016. Of those who voted early this year, 43 percent had not voted in 2012, 2016 or 2018, according to Cho’s group.
That affected more than just the presidential race. Progressive organizers say the surge of AAPI votes helped Democrats retake a U.S. House seat in the 7th Congressional District, where Carolyn Bourdeaux won by fewer than 9,000 votes. That was the only seat in the country that Democrats flipped this year, other than two in North Carolina that were reshaped by redistricting.
A similar transformation was evident in the five-person Gwinnett County Board of Commissioners, which went from being all-White and all-Republican in 2016 to an entirely Democratic commission this year, consisting of four Black members and one Asian American.
Now, with two crucial U.S. Senate races to be decided in Georgia on Jan. 5, both parties are keenly aware that the jump in newly engaged Asian voters could make the difference. Tight races are unfolding between Sen. David Perdue (R) and Ossoff, as well as between Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R) and the Rev. Raphael Warnock (D).
The reasons for the increase in Asian American turnout are complex. Democrats cite Trump’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic, as well as attacks on Muslims and the “Chinese flu,” which fueled hostility against Asian Americans. They also credit the impact of Vice President-elect Kamala D. Harris, the first Asian American on a major party ticket.
“Without a doubt, we helped serve as that margin of victory, along with other young communities of color,” said Georgia state Rep. Sam Park (D), who became the first Asian American Democrat elected to the Georgia General Assembly in 2016 and helped lead a group called Young Asian Americans for Biden.
Park began his political activism in 2012 by phone banking for Stacey Abrams, who at the time was the minority leader of the Georgia House. When he decided to run for office himself, he was keenly aware that someone like him — a gay, American-born, 30-something child of Korean immigrants — would have different concerns than, say, a recently naturalized Pakistani immigrant with limited English.
Indeed, national polling rarely distinguishes between the groups that fall under the broad AAPI umbrella, which in Georgia includes people of Indian, Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese and Filipino descent, among others.
About 42 percent of Asian adults have limited English proficiency, so outreach typically requires multiple languages, as well as an understanding of the diversity within the Asian American community.
In September, an annual survey by APIAVote and AAPI Data found that Vietnamese Americans were the only group to prefer Trump over Biden, while Indian Americans were the most likely to vote for the Democrat.
If Democrats seek to appeal to Asian Americans based on their image of a tolerant, inclusive America that welcomes immigrants, some Republicans see an opening based on appeals to social and fiscal conservatism and anti-Communism.
This year, though, Asian Americans’ preference was clear. The National Committee of Asian American Republicans even switched sides to endorse Biden, blasting Trump’s rhetoric as discriminatory and self-aggrandizing.
When it comes to AAPI outreach, some things “won’t cut it” anymore, Tran said. Campaigns can no longer create ads with a token Asian figure or run their standard English ads through Google Translate, he said, and they likely need to hold several events with multiple groups within the AAPI community.”
This Asian movement will obviously interact with the rise of China, where, as in Australia, China will begin putting pressure on its subjects to serve the interests of China, interests that Biden, if he crawls in, will also serve.
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