There’s been a lot written about Latinos’ overwhelming support for President Obama and other Democratic candidates on Nov. 6.<\/p>\n
But relatively little attention has been paid to the lopsided Asian-American support for the president.<\/p>\n
Exit polls found that 73 percent of Asian-Americans voted for Obama, slightly above the 71 percent of Latinos who did so.<\/p>\n
For years, Latinos in most of the country have voted reliably Democratic. But as recently as the 1990s, Asian-Americans voted heavily for Republican presidential candidates.<\/p>\n
The dramatic increase in Asian-American votes for Democrats is analyzed in this insightful Los Angeles Times op-ed coauthored by Karthick Ramakrishnan, an associate professor of political science at UC Riverside and director of the 2012 National Asian American Survey. The co-author is Taeku Lee, a professor of political science and law at UC Berkeley.<\/p>\n
In 1992, Bill Clinton received only 31 percent of the Asian-American vote. The Democratic presidential candidate’s share of the Asian-American vote has been rising since then, with Obama this year improving on the 62 percent of the Asian-American vote he won in 2008.<\/p>\n
There are far fewer Asian-American voters than Latino voters. But the Asian-American population is growing rapidly, nationwide and in the Inland area.<\/p>\n
The number of Asian-Americans in the Inland Empire nearly tripled between 1990 and 2011, to more than 262,000, according to U.S. Census data. Asians now comprise 6 percent of the Inland area’s population, up from 3 percent in 1990.<\/p>\n
Their political power will continue growing, in the Inland region and across the country.<\/p>\n
The LA Times op-ed argues that, as with Latinos, Republicans’ restrictionist views on immigration has helped turn off Asian-American voters to the GOP. About two-thirds of Asian-American voters are immigrants. Some Asian-Americans, most of whom are not Christian, may also have been bothered by Republican candidates who emphasize Christian values, Lee and Ramakrishnan say.<\/p>\n
The 2008 and 2012 National Asian American Survey also found that Asian-Americans tend to favor Democratic positions on issues such as healthcare and education. Obama’s appointment of Asian-Americans to a variety of positions was also a positive for Asian-American voters, the op-ed says.<\/p>\n
Richard Posner, a federal appellate court judge, says in Slate that another reason Asian-Americans may lean Democratic is that they are conscious of being a racial minority. The Democratic Party is widely seen as a party that reaches out to different racial and ethnic groups, while the Republican Party is viewed by some as hostile to racial minorities, Posner writes.<\/p>\n
And Asian-Americans may be more likely to see government as a positive force, which favors the Democratic Party, Posner says.<\/p>\n
But the LA Times op-ed says the Asian-American vote could still be in play in future elections. Half of Asian-Americans do not affiliate with either party, which shows an opening for the GOP. More GOP outreach to Asian-American voters and a less harsh image on immigration could help turn more Asian-American voters to the Republican Party, Ramakrishnan and Lee say.<\/p>\n
Shawn Steel, a Republican National Committee member and a former chairman of the California Republican Party, told the National Journal that the GOP hasn’t done enough to reach out to Asian-Americans and needs to do more \u2014 soon.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe’ve got to get on it,\u201d he said, \u201cand we’re running out of time.\u201d<\/p>\n
http:\/\/blog.pe.com\/multicultural-beat\/2012\/11\/27\/asian-americans-in-dramatic-shift-to-democrats\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
There’s been a lot written about Latinos’ overwhelming support for President Obama and other Democratic candidates on Nov. 6. But<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":72448,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19815","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"magazineBlocksPostFeaturedMedia":{"thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u-113x150.jpg","medium":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","medium_large":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","large":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","1536x1536":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","2048x2048":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-highlighted-post":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-featured-post-medium":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-featured-post-small":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u-113x90.jpg","colormag-featured-image":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-default-news":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u-113x150.jpg","colormag-featured-image-large":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-elementor-block-extra-large-thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-elementor-grid-large-thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-elementor-grid-small-thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-elementor-grid-medium-large-thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg"},"magazineBlocksPostAuthor":{"name":"Admin","avatar":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/53e6cdc30765aade0129f85e5aeb50124b1d3f5bb9a70373be31e4eb328371e0?s=96&d=mm&r=g"},"magazineBlocksPostCommentsNumber":"0","magazineBlocksPostExcerpt":"There’s been a lot written about Latinos’ overwhelming support for President Obama and other Democratic candidates on Nov. 6. But","magazineBlocksPostCategories":[],"magazineBlocksPostViewCount":129,"magazineBlocksPostReadTime":3,"magazine_blocks_featured_image_url":{"full":["https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg",113,170,false],"medium":["https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg",113,170,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u-113x150.jpg",113,150,true]},"magazine_blocks_author":{"display_name":"Admin","author_link":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/?author=1"},"magazine_blocks_comment":0,"magazine_blocks_author_image":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/53e6cdc30765aade0129f85e5aeb50124b1d3f5bb9a70373be31e4eb328371e0?s=96&d=mm&r=g","magazine_blocks_category":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19815","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19815"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19815\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/72448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19815"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19815"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19815"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}