Asian Americans

[King of Kensington]

How do the Asian American subgroups vote? Here are the 5 biggest groups (Hillary Clinton vs. Donald Trump):

Indian Americans   84%-14%

Korean Americans  84%-14%

Chinese Americans  73%-24%

Filipino Americans  71%-27%

Vietnamese Americans  65%-32%

https://www.aaldef.org/uploads/TheAsianAmericanVote2016-AALDEF.pdf

[The Ex-Factor]

AAPI Data is the best source for Asian-American political data (they do polls in Asian Americans' native languages), and this is what they had it at in November:

Indian Americans: 65-28
Korean Americans: 57-26
Japanese Americans: 61-24
Chinese Americans: 56-20
Filipino Americans: 52-34
Vietnamese Americans: 36-48

http://aapidata.com/blog/2020-aa-voter-survey-enthusiasm/

There are many possible hypotheses for why there's been a shift towards Trump since 2016, and it might be different for each subgroup. Just throwing out some ideas: 1) Salience of being anti-China has gone up (Vietnamese-Americans) 2) Rise in populist nationalism and identifying with Trump's platform (Indian-Americans) 3) Asian-Americans having an incumbent bias 4) America becoming more polarized by education, and non-college educated Asians shifting towards Trump after being unsure of him in 2016. 5) Trump's law and order message resonating with certain Asian Americans.

[ملكة كرينجيتوك]

AAPI Data is the best source for Asian-American political data (they do polls in Asian Americans' native languages), and this is what they had it at in September:

Indian Americans: 65-28
Korean Americans: 57-26
Japanese Americans: 61-24
Chinese Americans: 56-20
Filipino Americans: 52-34
Vietnamese Americans: 36-48

http://aapidata.com/blog/2020-aa-voter-survey-enthusiasm/

There are many possible hypotheses for why there's been a shift towards Trump since 2016, and it might be different for each subgroup. Just throwing out some ideas:

1) Salience of being anti-China has gone up (Vietnamese-Americans)

2) Rise in populist nationalism and identifying with Trump's platform (Indian-Americans)

3) Asian-Americans having an incumbent bias

4) America becoming more polarized by education, and non-college educated Asians shifting towards Trump after being unsure of him in 2016.

5) Trump's law and order message resonating with certain Asian Americans.

I'm very curious who the alleged Vietnamese American Clinton-Trump voters are. It seems like too big a shift to just be Boomer refugees, unless I'm severely underestimating how much of the electorate they comprise.

I strongly suspect #4 extends to Asians who come from lower SES, less educated backgrounds. I've anecdotally noticed this cultural disconnect among 1.5/1.75 gen Asian American women who transfered away from prestigious universities or experimental liberal arts schools for more *affordable*/*accessible* educational experiences closer to home.

I'm very grateful I stayed home and went to a non-elite public school and completely understand the people who transfer back home after their first year at big schools where you have this college campus bubble.

On another note, The National Committee of Asian American Republicans has officially endorsed Democratic nominee Joe Biden.

Just days before the election, the National Committee of Asian American Republicans has announced its support for Joe Biden. The group said in a statement, "Making America great again starts from all sides coming together, to heal a divided nation."

https://www.newsy.com/stories/asian-american-gop-group-backs-joe-biden/

[King of Kensington]

US born Asian Americans are very Democratic, similar to Jews in their voting patterns I think, which makes sense given that they're highly educated and live in liberal metropolitan areas.

I think the opposite is true for Hispanics, save Cubans, since they're more likely to assimilate into the white working class.

[Kuumo]

I'm very curious who the alleged Vietnamese American Clinton-Trump voters are. It seems like too big a shift to just be Boomer refugees, unless I'm severely underestimating how much of the electorate they comprise.

I'm wondering about this too. My grandfather would probably be considered one of the Boomer refugees most likely to flip, since he was in the South Vietnamese military and voted Republican through the mid 2000s. He has become a bit more liberal since then and voted for Obama twice and for Hillary in 2016 because he didn't like Trump. This year he really wants Trump out of office and will almost certainly vote for Biden. He is still staunchly anti-communist and anti-China but takes the COVID-19 pandemic very seriously. Anecdotal and a sample size of 1, but I imagine there are many other older Vietnamese Americans who share such sentiments. I don't think they will snap back as much as Cuban Americans.

[King of Kensington]

Asian groups in Canada would come out differently, I suspect.  Chinese Canadians are the most conservative by far, probably fairly evenly split between the Liberals and Conservatives but trending Conservative, while South Asians are much more Liberal and to a lesser extent NDP (though Indian Hindus might be more conservative but they don't dominate the South Asian population in Canada).  Filipinos I suspect are more Conservative than South Asians but less so than Chinese.

[ملكة كرينجيتوك]

Asian groups in Canada would come out differently, I suspect.  Chinese Canadians are the most conservative by far, probably fairly evenly split between the Liberals and Conservatives but trending Conservative, while South Asians are much more Liberal and to a lesser extent NDP (though Indian Hindus might be more conservative but they don't dominate the South Asian population in Canada).  Filipinos I suspect are more Conservative than South Asians but less so than Chinese.

My understanding is that the Canadian Tories are noticeably less xenophobic and right-wing on policy than the US Republicans, which means they don't alienate visible minorities the way the Dubya-Trump-era GOP does.

I also think Chinese Canadians being disproportionately of Cantonese-speaking (more specifically Hong Kong) origin and South Asian Canadians being disproportionately Punjabi explains some of their divergent voting patterns. I also get the impression (and idk if there's any hard data for this) that Chinese and South Asian Canadians have different occupational profiles than their US counterparts.

[RussFeingoldWasRobbed]

Asian Americans have gotten more democratic in every election since 1996 and I see no reason why that won't continue. Trump is toxic to highly educated voters, and Asians are overwhelmingly part of that bracket

[ملكة كرينجيتوك]

I'm very curious who the alleged Vietnamese American Clinton-Trump voters are. It seems like too big a shift to just be Boomer refugees, unless I'm severely underestimating how much of the electorate they comprise.

I'm wondering about this too. My grandfather would probably be considered one of the Boomer refugees most likely to flip, since he was in the South Vietnamese military and voted Republican through the mid 2000s. He has become a bit more liberal since then and voted for Obama twice and for Hillary in 2016 because he didn't like Trump. This year he really wants Trump out of office and will almost certainly vote for Biden. He is still staunchly anti-communist and anti-China but takes the COVID-19 pandemic very seriously. Anecdotal and a sample size of 1, but I imagine there are many other older Vietnamese Americans who share such sentiments. I don't think they will snap back as much as Cuban Americans.

It's possible there are a lot of newer, recently naturalized Vietnamese immigrants who favor Trump because of his hardline stance against China. I can't imagine most younger naturalized immigrants (under 35) falling into that category, but I imagine the ones who do would keep quiet about it.

[S019ian Liberal]

AAPI Data is the best source for Asian-American political data (they do polls in Asian Americans' native languages), and this is what they had it at in September:

Indian Americans: 65-28
Korean Americans: 57-26
Japanese Americans: 61-24
Chinese Americans: 56-20
Filipino Americans: 52-34
Vietnamese Americans: 36-48

http://aapidata.com/blog/2020-aa-voter-survey-enthusiasm/

There are many possible hypotheses for why there's been a shift towards Trump since 2016, and it might be different for each subgroup. Just throwing out some ideas:

1) Salience of being anti-China has gone up (Vietnamese-Americans)

2) Rise in populist nationalism and identifying with Trump's platform (Indian-Americans)

3) Asian-Americans having an incumbent bias

4) America becoming more polarized by education, and non-college educated Asians shifting towards Trump after being unsure of him in 2016.

5) Trump's law and order message resonating with certain Asian Americans.

I'm very curious who the alleged Vietnamese American Clinton-Trump voters are. It seems like too big a shift to just be Boomer refugees, unless I'm severely underestimating how much of the electorate they comprise.

I strongly suspect #4 extends to Asians who come from lower SES, less educated backgrounds. I've anecdotally noticed this cultural disconnect among 1.5/1.75 gen Asian American women who transfered away from prestigious universities or experimental liberal arts schools for more *affordable*/*accessible* educational experiences closer to home.

I'm very grateful I stayed home and went to a non-elite public school and completely understand the people who transfer back home after their first year at big schools where you have this college campus bubble.

On another note, The National Committee of Asian American Republicans has officially endorsed Democratic nominee Joe Biden.

Just days before the election, the National Committee of Asian American Republicans has announced its support for Joe Biden. The group said in a statement, "Making America great again starts from all sides coming together, to heal a divided nation."

https://www.newsy.com/stories/asian-american-gop-group-backs-joe-biden/

The post-90 wave of mainland Chinese are way wealthier by far. This is due to government policy-setting (using a points-based immigration system) which values economic contributors more than refugees by status. As a result many are more social conservative than previous generations of arrivals from Hong Kong or Taiwan, for instance. You also see this to a lesser degree with certain concentrated Middle Eastern groups (the post-war Lebanese are a good example) and pretty much all South Asian categories I think (most pronounced among Sri Lankan, Pakistani, Nepalese) although the latter group is insignificant in size -- less sure about Bangladeshi and Iranian though my guess is that the same hold applies. In the future you may see a similar dynamic play out with immigrants from Africa being of far higher class than their predecessors generally speaking, or perhaps even displacing local "native" populations geographically.

[ملكة كرينجيتوك]

The post-90 wave of mainland Chinese are way wealthier by far. This is due to government policy-setting (using a points-based immigration system) which values economic contributors more than refugees by status. As a result many are more social conservative than previous generations of arrivals from Hong Kong or Taiwan, for instance. You also see this to a lesser degree with certain concentrated Middle Eastern groups (the post-war Lebanese are a good example) and pretty much all South Asian categories I think (most pronounced among Sri Lankan, Pakistani, Nepalese) although the latter group is insignificant in size -- less sure about Bangladeshi and Iranian though my guess is that the same hold applies. In the future you may see a similar dynamic play out with immigrants from Africa being of far higher class than their predecessors generally speaking, or perhaps even displacing local "native" populations geographically.

In my experience, post-Cold War Mainland Chinese arrivals are fairly diverse socioeconomically. Aside from the stereotypical graduate student-turned-PMC types, there are also many lower-income, less educated immigrants in urban enclaves, as well as a certain number of nouveau riche millionaires who started coming in the last 10ish years.

I don't think the post-Cold War arrivals are necessarily more "socially conservative" because of their class and educational background. I think some of the difference comes from the cultural divergence between relatively insular Mainland China and relatively liberal/Westernized Taiwan and Hong Kong.

[S019ian Liberal]

The post-90 wave of mainland Chinese are way wealthier by far. This is due to government policy-setting (using a points-based immigration system) which values economic contributors more than refugees by status. As a result many are more social conservative than previous generations of arrivals from Hong Kong or Taiwan, for instance. You also see this to a lesser degree with certain concentrated Middle Eastern groups (the post-war Lebanese are a good example) and pretty much all South Asian categories I think (most pronounced among Sri Lankan, Pakistani, Nepalese) although the latter group is insignificant in size -- less sure about Bangladeshi and Iranian though my guess is that the same hold applies. In the future you may see a similar dynamic play out with immigrants from Africa being of far higher class than their predecessors generally speaking, or perhaps even displacing local "native" populations geographically.

In my experience, post-Cold War Mainland Chinese arrivals are fairly diverse socioeconomically. Aside from the stereotypical graduate student-turned-PMC types, there are also many lower-income, less educated immigrants in urban enclaves, as well as a certain number of nouveau riche millionaires who started coming in the last 10ish years.

I don't think the post-Cold War arrivals are necessarily more "socially conservative" because of their class and educational background. I think some of the difference comes from the cultural divergence between relatively insular Mainland China and relatively liberal/Westernized Taiwan and Hong Kong.

I was speaking mainly about my experience with immigrants to Canada specifically, sorry that I forgot to quality this overall. I once saw an handy and useful income distribution chart by decade which illustrated this rather stark divide, if I happen to come across it again I'll link it here and find you to send it.

[S019ian Liberal]

frankly i am so tired of western countries blaming the third-world for problems of their OWN creation.

[ملكة كرينجيتوك]

Vietnamese only. He might get a decent chunk of votes from filipinos, and maybe Christian and/or staunchly anticommunists Koreans and Chinese

A lot of recent Chinese immigrants love both the CCP and Donald Trump. He'll still lose the Chinese-American vote because these types of people mostly either can't vote or don't, but he'll probably do better than many expect.

There’s a reason Trump did best among Chinese and Vietnamese voters out of all Asian subgroups in 2016. My gut tells me the most recent AAPI Data nationwide poll underestimates Biden among Vietnamese voters and underestimates Trump among Chinese voters (particularly among adult immigrants).

Here is that 2020 AAPI poll, compared to their 2016 results survey for context

Spoiler alert! Click Show to show the content.

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Spoiler alert! Click Show to show the content.

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It looks like my gut was right on that one. There's absolutely no way in hell Trump won only 20% of Chinese American voters- that would've resulted in a huge D swing from 2016, which clearly didn't happen. Even if Trump won Vietnamese Americans overall (and that's no longer a foregone conclusion like it was pre-2016), he definitely did not get 64%.

The post-election exit polls for Asians strongly suggest that a large portion (if not a clear majority) of the 14% "Undecided" voters in AAPI Data's Sept 2020 general poll voted for Biden. Even if we take the Edison exit poll crosstabs at (doomer) face value, Trump would've only gained 4% from the AAPI Data topline while Biden gained 7%. Meanwhile, the exit polls that attempted to gauge voting patterns among different subgroups all converged to something closer to AP Votecast's 70-28 Biden.


Anyway, here are some maps of the 3 largest Asian subgroups in each US state- based on Pew Research Center findings from 2019. I feel like there are some correlations between which groups dominate certain states, and the 1) occupational, 2) educational, 3) household income, and 4) immigrant-generation profiles of their Asian American populations- all of which impact how Asians vote as a whole.

[SInNYC]

The growth of Indian Americans is surprising since they used to be way smaller than Chinese Americans but are now not a distant 2nd place. Indians also seem more evenly distributed, leading in 22 states (vs 12 for Chinese).

I also didnt know there were so many Filipinos in AK - sounds like a weather shock to immigrants.

Are the numbers on the states the percent of Asian Americans by that group?

[ملكة كرينجيتوك]

The growth of Indian Americans is surprising since they used to be way smaller than Chinese Americans but are now not a distant 2nd place. Indians also seem more evenly distributed, leading in 22 states (vs 12 for Chinese).

I also didnt know there were so many Filipinos in AK - sounds like a weather shock to immigrants.

Are the numbers on the states the percent of Asian Americans by that group?

It isn't too surprising if you're familiar with the H-1B visa demographic. And yes, the numbers in those maps are listed here: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/04/29/key-facts-about-asian-origin-groups-in-the-u-s/


According to Pew Research, Asian voters are relatively hostile to recreational marijuana (compared to every other racial group and to R's/R-leaners as a whole) and to undocumented immigrants (compared to blacks and Latinos as a whole). The weed crosstab didn't surprise me; the immigration one kind of did- but it makes sense when you consider how many Asian voters immigrated here as older children or adults. These surveys are of Asian American adults interviewed in English, so I'm not sure how the findings would be different if they also interviewed people who weren't comfortable answering in English.

source 1


source 2

[King of Kensington]

Interesting to see the strong pro-immigration views of Black Americans - I guess the weird "ADOS" movement hasn't really gone anywhere.

[All Along The Watchtower]

Interesting to see the strong pro-immigration views of Black Americans - I guess the weird "ADOS" movement hasn't really gone anywhere.

Americans in general are pro-immigrant. We aren't Europe.

[ملكة كرينجيتوك]

Interesting to see the strong pro-immigration views of Black Americans - I guess the weird "ADOS" movement hasn't really gone anywhere.

That poll specifically measured "pro/anti-undocumented" sentiment.


Also it looks like (upscale/college-educated, married) Asian female Costco shoppers are going to be the next MSM political demographics fetish after WWC diner interviews and RGV Tejanos.

https://www.businessinsider.com/typical-costco-shopper-demographic-asian-american-woman-earning-high-income-2021-7

Roughly one-third of US shoppers are Costco customers, according to data from the analytics firm Numerator prepared for Insider.

Numerator found that Costco's typical shopper in the US is an Asian American woman between 35 and 44 years old who is married and living in a city in the Pacific Northwest. (Costco was founded in Seattle and is based in Washington.)

She typically has a four-year degree or higher level of education and earns more than $125,000 a year.