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A recent survey confirms a majority of Indian-American registered voters support Democrats down the line from president to House and Senate candidates, and are put off by Republican Donald Trump’s exclusionary rhetoric, Ela Dutt reports
If it was left up to Indian-Americans to elect the next president of the United States, it would be Hillary Clinton, according to an opinion poll.
The Democratic Party claims the loyalty of 65 percent of Indian-Americans while the Republican Party with front-runner Donald Trump gets the support of 18 percent, the poll by AAPI Data (Asian-American & Pacific Islander DATA) released May 23 found. Thirty-six percent don’t identify with either.
The Trump factor only reinforces the long-standing Asian Indian aversion to the GOP, according to Karthik Ramakrishnan, a professor at University of California, Riverside, who heads AAPI Data that conducted the survey. He said it proves that Indian-Americans like others, are turned off by what he called Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric. Compared to other Asian Americans, Indians give a lower rating to Trump.
The study, “Inclusion Not Exclusion: Spring 2016 Asian American Voter Survey,” confirms the longstanding view that Indian-Americans are more Democratic leaning and reinforces their highest job approval rating for Obama at 84 percent, higher than in any other Asian group, he said.
“We have reports of Indian-Americans’ rising interest in getting naturalized,” Ramakrishnan said. “Part of that heightened interest is typical of a presidential election year, but it’s possible that some of it is the result of Trump being in the race.” The poll shows 95 percent of registered voters plan to vote on November 8.
However, the Indian-American community’s impact will be limited because it is more spread out around the country than other Asian American registered voters, Ramakrishnan believes. It is likely to have some impact only in battleground states like Virginia and Florida, and possibly Ohio and Pennsylvania, where there are some concentrations of Indian Americans, according to his analysis.
While the presidential party primaries were in progress, 42 percent of Indian-American registered voters said Clinton was their choice, 30 percent went for Sanders, and a paltry 7 percent for Trump.
1988 Poll
The latest poll broadly reflects the trend of overwhelming Democratic Party support going all the way back to 1988. In the first ever poll of Indian-American voters conducted in October 1988 on the eve of the presidential elections, 52.7 percent backed the then Democratic Party candidate Michael Dukakis and only 29.1 percent the Republican George H.W. Bush, who won the presidential election that year.
The path-breaking survey carried in the Nov. 4, 1988 issue of India Abroad, was published by pioneering editor and publisher Gopal Raju.
The survey was overseen by this correspondent and also found that 62 percent of Asian Indian residents who were not citizens supported the Democratic Party and 28 percent the GOP.
Community activists and observers also say the poll meshes with their own observations. New Jersey state Assemblyman Raj Mukherji, who fielded questions about the presidential elections at a recent call-in show on an Indian-American television channel, said that Clinton had overwhelming support in the community.
“What I hear from Indian-Americans in the tri-state area is that they will support Secretary Clinton,” as will he, Mukherji told News India Times. Maryland-based philanthropist and Democratic political activist Mahinder Tak, who has thrown several fundraisers for the former First Lady and other Democrats, has the same assessment.
Both Mukherji and Tak hold the same view – that the community’s support for Clinton is based on her familiarity with India going as far back as the 990s, and her performance as Secretary of State. Besides, Clinton has a inner circle of Indian-American loyalists like Neera Tanden, executive director of the think-tank Center for American Progressive, and lawyer and public policy advocate Maya Harris, sister of California Attorney General Kamala Harris, now a U.S. Senate candidate from California, to mention a few.
Mukherji says he occasionally hears of support for billionaire New York businessman Donald Trump on the Republican ticket. “I am intrigued by this phenomena because of the xenophobia he’s brought into the mainstream,” Mukherji says.
“The Indian community has a long association with Clinton,” says political activist Arvind Swamy of New Jersey who is involved in the drive to register for Indian-American and South Asian voters for November 8. “Most Indian-Americans don’t even seem to know Bernie, besides the fact that he comes from a state that has very few Indians,” Swamy adds.
But many Indian-American millennials like Amit Prakash, a school teacher in Brooklyn, New York, an avid blogger for Sanders, disputes this and contends that Sanders has a broader appeal than just the relationship with his agenda for free tuition in public colleges and health care for all. Plus, the AAPI Data survey shows 30 percent of registered Indian-American voters supported Sanders during the primaries, hardly a small number, to the 42 percent for Clinton.
Sanders also has about the same candidate- favorability rating as Clinton. Her challenge remains to bring this group to her side once she is officially nominated amid stiff, unyielding opposition from Sanders.
Current Poll
The survey, which was conducted between April 11 and May 17, interviewed 1,212 registered Asian-American voters, among them more than 200 Indian-Americans. It brought up some interesting findings, such as – 6 percent of Indian-American registered voters identified themselves as “very liberal,” 24 percent as “liberal,” 52 percent as “moderate,” 16 percent as “conservative” and 2 percent as “very conservative.” The margin of error for Indian-Americans was plus or minus 6.9 percent.
If President Obama were able to run again, he would have an 83 percent “candidate favorability” rating among the Indian American registered voters. Clinton garners a 62 percent candidate favorability rating but 25 percent of them see her in an unfavorable light and 12 percent have no opinion.
Notably, Sanders gets a higher candidate favorability rating than Clinton at 63 percent, though 21 percent have no opinion and don’t know.
Trump gets only a 22 percent favorability rating and 62 percent of Indian-American registered voters view him unfavorably.
In view of accusations against the Trump candidacy’s use of divisive rhetoric on Muslims and Mexicans, one of the survey questions asked in general, whether if a candidate used “exclusionary rhetoric” would that drive Indian-American registered voters away from the candidate. Twenty nine percent said they would still vote for the candidate regardless of exclusionary rhetoric; another 43 percent said they would vote for someone else, and a significant 27 percent said they didn’t know.
When asked more specifically how they would react to anti-Muslim rhetoric, 24 percent of Indian-American registered voters said they would still vote for their candidate of choice; but 59 percent said they would vote for someone else.
Senate & House
Some of the other interesting findings of the survey relate to Senatorial and House races. Fifty nine percent of registered Indian-American voters would support a Democratic candidate and 27 percent would go with a Republican.
This takes on added importance in light of the California Senate race between front-runners Attorney General Kamala Harris and Rep. Loretta Sanchez, D-California. Most Asian Americans are undecided (55 percent). But the survey detected a sizable increase in Harris voters once they know she is part-Asian-American.
“It’s possible that those in politics already know that Kamala Harris is part Indian-American,” but not everyone does, Ramakrishnan points out. “So it’s possible that she may play up the Asian American side of her to attract that vote,” he added.
For House of Representatives candidates, 62 percent of Asian-Americans will support Democrats. This becomes significant for Indian-Americans in Illinois, who are banking on candidate Raja Krishnamoorthi making it to Capitol Hill.
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