Rising income among other factors indicate that Asian Americans should be a
Rising income among other factors indicate that Asian Americans should be a natural fit for the Republican Party, yet they have flocked to the other side at a stunning pace.
In the 2012 presidential election, Democratic President Obama garnered 73 percent of the Asian American vote, and Asian Americans have been steadily moving to the Democratic Party over the last two decades, say three academics who are studying the issue.
“It’s puzzling because in political science, it is well-documented that income is positively correlated with the Republican Party,” said Cecilia Mo, assistant professor of political science at Vanderbilt University and one of three authors of the paper, “Why do Asian Americans Identify as Democrats? Testing Theories of Social Exclusion and Intergroup Solidarity.”
“Asian Americans are now at 4 percent of the population and they are the fastest-growing ethnic group in this country. They are projected to be 9 percent of the U.S. population by 2050.”
Mo, with Alexander Kuo, assistant professor of government at Cornell University, and Neil Malhotra, associate professor at Stanford Graduate School of Business, hypothesized that one reason Asian Americans have turned away from the Republican Party could be that they associate feelings of social exclusion based on their ethnic background with the GOP.
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