CA- AAPI Voters are Influential in 2020 D Primaries, Remain Persuadable

[NOVA Green]

Very interesting, despite being a several Month old poll...

It is worth noting that among the Asian population of California the breakdown is roughly the following:

Chinese----   1.4 Million   (25.6% of the Asian Population of Cali)
Filipino----    1.3 Million   (23.5% of the Asian Population of Cali)
Indian----     0.7 Million   (12.4% of the Asian Population of Cali)
Vietnamese-  0.6 Million   (11.8% of the Asian Population of Cali)
Korean---      0.5 Million   (8.6% of the Asian Population of Cali)
Japanese--    0.3 Million   (5.1% of the Asian Population of Cali).

So---- if we look at this within the terms of the Democratic Primaries:

Chinese-American Voters:

1.) Chinese-American Voters are not only the largest slice of the Asian Population of Cali, but quite possibly the largest Asian-American electoral voting block (But quite possibly superseded by Filipino-Americans).

2.) Chinese-American voters in California have historically tended to be one of the most reliable Asian-American voting blocs in California, eclipsed by only Japanese-Americans, and more recently possibly by Indian-Americans.

3.) Roughly 34% of Chinese-Americans in Cali live in Metro SF (Marin, San Francisco, Contra Costa, Alameda, and San Mateo)....

4.) Roughly 12% of Chinese-Americans live in Metro San Jose (Santa Clara County).

5.) Roughly 37% of Chinese-Americans live in Metro LA...

Naturally although the community is spread out among a vast Metro Area, there are major concentrations around Pasadena, the San Gabriel Valley, not to mention Irvine.

6.) So based upon this older poll it appears looking at the net FAVs that Biden has a bit of a lead, but Sanders, Harris, and Yang aren't that far behind.

7.) This is a far cry from the '16 DEM Primary where HRC routed Bernie among Asian-American voting precincts in the Bay Area (Including heavily Chinese-American precincts within SF).

Filipino-American Voters:

Filipino-Americans track closest to the average of Asian-Americans in Cali when it comes to partisan affiliation. This is partially because as the inter-marriage with Anglo-Americans and Latino-Americans starting before WW II, and greatly accelerated after the War, created a community that perhaps was a bit more assimilated compared to most other Asian-American populations in California in the '50s/'60s and even into the '70s.

Almost 50% of Filipino-Americans in Cali are concentrated within the Metro Bay-Area and Metro "Sac"....

% of Total Population of Filipino-Americans by County in Cali:

Solano (10.4%), San Mateo (9.6%), Alameda (5.5%), San Joaquin (4.9%), Santa Clara (4.8%), San Diego (4.8%), Contra Costa (4.6%), San Francisco (4.4%), Los Angeles (3.4%)....

Not all Counties are created equal:

Los Angeles County has 27% of the Filipino-American population of Cali, and San Diego County has 12.5% of the total....

1.) Sanders has a decent lead among Filipino-Americans compared to Biden.

2.) It is likely true that part of the reason is that Filipino-Americans are more likely to be younger because of the high percentage of Catholics, as well as inter-marriage with Anglos and Latino populations over the decades, both of which are populations where Bernie performed extremely well in the '16 DEM primaries.

3.) If this holds, I would not be surprised to see Bernie performing extremely well even in Asian-American precincts in the Bay Area, where he was decimated by HRC.

4.) South SF, Hayward, Fremont, and San Jose spring to mind in NorCal, but certainly I would also be looking at places like the City of San Diego, the San Fernando Valley, the East San Gabriel Valley within SoCal for places where Bernie might perform quite well in 2020 DEM Primaries among the Filipino-American electorate.

Indian-American Voters:

This is a much smaller sliver of the Asian-American electorate in Cali than Chinese-Americans or Filipino-Americans.

Although Indian-Americans represent 12.4% of the Asian Population in Cali, they are much likely a smaller segment of the electorate, mainly because there are many foreign-workers within the Tech Sector that have residency and work permits, but are not US citizens, and hence do not have voting rights,

The Indian-American population of California is again heavily concentrated in NorCal....

11% of Sutter County, 8% of Santa Clara County, 6.4% of Alameda County identify as of Indian Ancestry....

Almost 50% of Californians of Indian Ancestry live in either Metro SF or SJ...

Now you have 26% of Indians living in Los Angeles and San Diego....

Although overall, Indian-American voters skew heavily Democratic, and within Cali tend to prefer Biden & Harris over Sanders, this will likely be a much smaller sliver of the DEM PRIM electorate in Cali than the raw Asian-American numbers suggest...

Still, elections are won and lost on the margins....

Vietnamese-American Voters:

Although it is true that this community is much less overwhelmingly Republican than it used to be from even back in the '90s where massive street marches in "Little Hanoi" parts of SoCal celebrated the death of Ho Chi Minh, it is still true that despite the massive precinct swings in '16 within the GE, that registered voters of Vietnamese background tend to be much more heavily Republican or Independent than Democratic, meaning we likely won't see massive numbers shifting the race in the 2020 DEM Primary....

So, the 4th largest Asian-American population in California is likely to have less of an influence in the 2020 DEM Primaries than even the Indian-American population....

The vast majority of Vietnamese-Americans within California are concentrated in a few places within Metro-LA, Metro San Diego and the San Jose Metro Area, with a chunk within metro SF...

Interesting question will be how younger Vietnamese-American voters vote in the 2020 DEM primary, considering that just like the Cuban-American youth, there are profound differences of opinion on major policy items....

Japanese-American Voters:


The most reliably Democratic Asian-American voting bloc for decades, and generally quite established....

I am anticipating that Japanese-American voters within Cali are likely to participate at higher rates than Korean-Americans, Vietnamese-Americans, and even possibly Indian-Americans in the 2020 Democratic Primary in California....

Still, now we are starting to get down to the margins and sub-margins, and really there are only a few places in CA where we might even be able to observe voting patterns of Japanese-American voters....