ut preliminary numbers from a 14-state exit poll conducted by the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF) may offer a bright spot for Republicans. While Clinton performed better nationally with AAPI voters than President Barack Obama did in 2012 — winning 87 percent of the vote compared to Obama's 77 percent — President-elect Donald Trump secured double the AAPI support compared to GOP candidate Mitt Romney in Pennsylvania, a battleground state that helped Trump win the election.
What's more, Trump got 29 percent of AAPI support in Nevada, up eight points compared to Romney, according to AALDEF. Clinton, by contrast, garnered 69 percent, down 12 points compared to President Obama.
Despite gains in Pennsylvania and Nevada, Trump still fared worse than Romney in nine of the 12 states for which AALDEF reported numbers last week. That includes Wang's home state of California, where 17 percent of AAPIs backed Trump, compared to 34 percent who supported Romney in 2012.
Obama had 81% in Nevada??
This is the 2nd best Asian American result for Dems & better than 2008. 2012 was a historic high & Trump only got 29% to Romney historic low of 26%
Of the 6 groups surveyed - Trump did best among Korean, then Chinese, then Japanese, then Vietnamese, then Filipino & then Indian.
Clinton won all 6 groups comfortably & she won by the biggest number among Indian & then Filipino.
As a Korean-American, that really disappoints me if it's true.
Just looking at 2012 illegal immigrants numbers by country, it appears that Philippines and India had taken immigration as a factor in their votes since that's the group Hillary did best with.
So I am curious as to why Koreans gave the most support to Trump.
Korean Americans are heavily Christians so it initially makes sense that they are more Republican than other Asians but they had less of a problem with Obama's image as a possible Muslim. It could be that Obama maxed out the votes with his image as the first minority president.
But I also wonder if this is a symptom of viral nationalist movement growing among Koreans as well with incrementally unfavorable view of Geun-Hye Park and her globalization policy with the US.