Trump is turning Asian-Americans into Democrats
On paper at least, Asian-Americans seem like perfect Republicans. Many are small-business owners. Their communities tend to be more culturally conservative. And a lot of them, having fled oppressive communist governments, found comfort in the Republican Party’s aggressive anti-communist policies.
But in what could be a significant realignment of political allegiance, AsianAmericans are identifying as Democrats at a quicker pace than any other racial group. And many Republicans worry this election will only accelerate that trend, damaging their party for years to come with what is now the fastest-growing minority in the country.
Republican nominee Donald Trump is not helping. His attacks on the Chinese — which he has sometimes delivered in a crude, mocking accent — are a feature of his populist campaign. He has suggested cutting off immigration from the Philippines, citing fears that the longtime US ally poses the same national security threat as countries like Syria and Afghanistan.
Mr Trump’s talk of deporting millions of undocumented immigrants has also stirred up painful memories among a group that has been singled out under US law before, whether by the Chinese Exclusion Act, which barred the immigration of Chinese labourers until 1943, or by the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II.
“It’s like we’re going back in time,” said Marc Matsuo of Las Vegas, who grew up in Hawaii with parents of Japanese ancestry and recalled how his family used to feel uncomfortable expressing their heritage, to the point they would not speak Japanese. He now helps register Asian-Americans to vote. “I was always brought up that you don’t talk about religion, you don’t talk about politics. Not anymore.”
Though Asian-Americans are still just 4% of the overall eligible voting population, their political power is concentrated in important swing states like Nevada and Virginia, where both parties have been building on their efforts to reach out.
In Las Vegas, home to one of the country’s largest Asian populations, this means printing campaign leaflets in Korean, having a Vietnamese translator on standby at speeches, publishing op-ed articles in the local Filipino newspaper and hiring employees who know enough Mandarin to recruit voters at the Chinatown market.
Hillary Clinton’s campaign has a resident staff member in Las Vegas dedicated to Asian-Americans and Pacific Islanders. Staff members and volunteers here speak Chinese, Korean, Hindi and Tagalog, the Filipino language. The campaign has recently been conducting native language training on how to use voting machines in a local Chinese cultural centre. Volunteers court supporters in Buddhist temples.
Though Mr Trump’s campaign announced a new Asian Pacific American Advisory Committee last week, a Republican National Committee spokesman, Ninio Fetalvo, said this outreach had been coordinated until now mainly through two staff members at the party’s Washington headquarters. The party, he added, has also printed materials in a variety of Asian languages in cities like Las Vegas.
Republicans’ difficulties with AsianAmericans are similar to those the party has faced with most minority groups. A sense that the party is hostile to immigrants and minorities has driven Asian-American voters into the Democratic Party, political scientists and community leaders said. And if Republicans do not make more of an effort, those voting shifts could harden, just as Hispanics’ voting patterns have.
“What we see now are some early indications that people who either leaned toward the Democratic Party or did not identify with either party are now starting to identify as Democrats,” said Karthick Ramakrishnan, a professor of political science at the University of California, Riverside. “This is still a group that is making up its mind,” he added, “but it should be concerning to the Republican Party that you’re starting to see this crystallisation.”
A national survey in the spring by Asian and Pacific Islander American Vote, a nonpartisan research group, showed “a significant leftward shift” since 2012 among Asian-American registered voters, with 47% now identifying with the Democratic Party, compared with 35% in 2012. Fifteen percent identified as Republican.
In 1992, the year national exit polls started reporting Asian-American sentiment, the group leaned Republican, supporting George Bush over Bill Clinton 55% to 31%. But by 2012, that had reversed. Asian-Americans overwhelmingly supported President Barack Obama over Mitt Romney — 73% to 26%.
A Pew Research Centre report released last month showed that Asian-Americans have since 2008 embraced the Democratic Party faster than any other ethnic group.
Still, many Republicans believe that the damage is reversible and see AsianAmericans’ political identity as still very young and malleable. For example, among many Asian-Americans, there is a tendency to be less forgiving on illegal immigration, which is sometimes seen as an issue specific to Latinos.
Lanhee Chen, who was Mitt Romney’s policy director in 2012, said the effect of Mr Trump’s harsh talk on immigration could be more muted with Asian-Americans than it is with other minorities.
“Trump has not been helpful,” Mr Chen said. “Now is it as directly harmful as it would be to Latinos? I don’t think so.”
As Asian-Americans have replaced Hispanics as the nation’s fastest growing racial group, Nevada has become the centre of their emerging political class. Asian-Americans are now about 7% of the electorate in the state, a figure that is expected to double by 2060.