Aren't the Karen people mostly in Burma and Thailand? I assume there aren't enough of them in the American electorate to matter one way or the other.
More than 90% are Christians with Baptists and Seventh-day Adventists being the big groups and they're very devout and the church is the focus point of their communities (even Karen Buddhists go to church at times for that reason), so I guess they normally vote Republican. Generally the Burmese community in the US is very socially and culturally conservative and dominated by refugees from various traditional and devout religious minorities, but a lot of them also think Trump's style and demeanor reminds them of the Burmese generals and the regime they fled, and at least in 2016 that was a factor since Clinton was perceived to care about Burma and be knowledgable about it, not sure if the same applies to Biden. Anecdotally they also don't think Trump is a true Christian, but I only got that from one Karen guy. I could see a lot of ticket splitting with people voting for Biden, but GOP down ballot. Biden is pro-choice, but he's open and serious about his faith, knows about foreign policy/cares about human rights and other countries and Trump's demeanor is just at odds with Karen culture. On the other hand liberal American culture is completely alien to them and the riots could also have pushed some people towards Trump.
This post sums up why many Asian subgroups are up for grabs for both parties.
I suspect most Myanmar-origin Americans are ethnic Bamar (or more likely ethnic Chinese), and that Karen Americans might not identify as “Burmese”. But this is all baseless conjecture and inferences about suggested 2nd degree Facebook connections on my part. I can count the number of Myanmar-origin individuals in the US I’ve personally met on one hand.
From Wiki:
Karen people first arrived to the U.S. in 2002. In 2017 Minnesota was reported to have more than 12,000 Karen, the largest such community in the country.[2] Other places with significant populations are California, Texas, New York, and Indiana.[3]
Total population
215,000[1]
Regions with significant populations
Arizona, California, New York, Indiana, Virginia, Maryland, Illinois, Ohio, Texas, Georgia, Wyoming, Minnesota
Poll
