[If Democrats seek to appeal to Asian Americans based on their image of a tolerant, inclusive America that welcomes immigrants, some Republicans see an opening based on appeals to social and fiscal conservatism and anti-Communism. During the campaign, Republican officials stressed Trump’s support for tax cuts, and even some Democrats conceded such messages could resonate.]
By Amy B Wang
Not
a single other Asian person showed up to his event.
Nearly
four years later, that has dramatically changed. Georgia’s hand recount
and vote certification confirmed that Asian
American and Pacific Islander voters — who make up the fastest-growing
demographic in Georgia — helped swing the state for the Democrats for the first
time since 1992.
While
AAPI voters comprise only about 4 percent of Georgia’s population, that
amounts to roughly 238,000 eligible voters, more than enough to determine races
in the narrowly divided state. Georgia saw a 91 percent increase in AAPI
voter turnout over 2016, according to an analysis by the Democratic firm TargetSmart, and
exit polls showed Asian American voters preferred Joe Biden to
President Trump by 2 to 1.
Strong
turnout among Latino and Black voters also contributed to Biden’s win, in
Georgia and across the country. But the near-doubling of turnout among Asian
American voters — which historically has had some of the lowest turnout
nationally — suggests a far-reaching change that could resonate for
decades.
That
change also played out in swing states like Arizona, Michigan and Nevada, where
changing demographics and rapidly diversifying suburbs are reconfiguring the
political map. In every battleground state, the AAPI community increased its
turnout more than any other group, and in Georgia and Arizona, traditionally
red states that went for Biden, the vote was decided by a margin that was less
than the increase in AAPI voters, TargetSmart noted.
“We
are that new electorate,” said Stephanie Cho, executive director of the Atlanta
chapter of Asian Americans Advancing Justice. “Us along with Black women
voters, along with Latino voters, along with young people, really have changed
the trajectory of what Georgia looks like.”
In
Gwinnett County outside Atlanta, which has the state’s largest AAPI population,
more than 30,000 AAPI voters cast their ballots early this year compared with
9,500 in 2016. Of those who voted early this year, 43 percent had not
voted in 2012, 2016 or 2018, according to Cho’s group.
[In
Georgia, get-out-the-vote operations that helped Biden win haven’t stopped]
That
affected more than just the presidential race. Progressive organizers say the
surge of AAPI votes helped Democrats retake a U.S. House seat in the 7th
Congressional District, where Carolyn Bourdeaux won by fewer than 9,000 votes.
That was the only seat in the country that Democrats flipped this year, other
than two in North Carolina that were reshaped by redistricting.
A
similar transformation was evident in the five-person Gwinnett County Board of
Commissioners, which went from being all-White and all-Republican in 2016 to an
entirely Democratic commission this year, consisting of four Black members and
one Asian American.
Now,
with two crucial U.S. Senate races to be decided in Georgia on Jan. 5,
both parties are keenly aware that the jump in newly engaged Asian voters could
make the difference. Tight races are unfolding between Sen. David Perdue (R)
and Ossoff, as well as between Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R) and Rev. Raphael Warnock
(D).
The
reasons for the increase in Asian American turnout are complex. Democrats cite
Trump’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic, as well as attacks on Muslims
and the “Chinese flu,” which fueled hostility against Asian Americans. They
also credit the impact of Vice President-elect Kamala D. Harris, the first
Asian American on a major party ticket.
But
organizers say the effort to engage Georgia’s AAPI community has been years in
the making, requiring careful, sustained outreach far beyond Trump. “The wins
don’t happen overnight,” Cho said. “We’ve been working and organizing and
talking to folks for years and years. This is the year that everything sort of
came together.”
When
Cho moved to Georgia from California in 2015, she was shocked at the lack of
Asian involvement in the state’s politics, despite already sizable populations
in Gwinnett, Fulton and DeKalb counties. Because Asian Americans were seen as
unengaged, campaigns did not seek them out, which in turn gave them little
reason to join the process — “almost like a self-fulfilling prophecy,” Cho
said.
Michelle
Au, a Chinese American anesthesiologist who just won a seat in the Georgia
State Senate, told The Lily earlier this year that one factor
was the dynamic within some families. “Growing up, I never saw any Asian people
in politics. It just wasn’t a thing,” Au said. “It wasn’t something that Asian
families push their kids to do.”
Determined
to change the landscape, Cho founded the Asian American Advocacy Fund to engage
and register Asian Americans in Georgia.
In
the three months before Election Day, AAPI organizers estimate they called
92 percent of the estimated 238,000 eligible AAPI voters in Georgia. By
Election Day itself, 50 percent of the state’s registered AAPI voters had
already voted — a 141 percent increase over the early vote in 2016.
“Without
a doubt, we helped serve as that margin of victory, along with other young
communities of color,” said Georgia state Rep. Sam Park (D), who became the
first Asian American Democrat elected to the Georgia General Assembly in 2016
and helped lead a group called Young Asian Americans for Biden.
Park
began his political activism in 2012 by phone banking for Stacey Abrams, who at
the time was the minority leader of the Georgia House. When he decided to run
for office himself, he was keenly aware that someone like him — a gay,
American-born, 30-something child of Korean immigrants — would have different
concerns than, say, a recently naturalized Pakistani immigrant with limited
English.
“I
was very intentional with ensuring that we had an understanding of the various
Asian American communities,” Park said. “I think it’s always important not to
overgeneralize.”
Indeed,
national polling rarely distinguishes between the groups that fall under the
broad AAPI umbrella, which in Georgia includes people of Indian, Chinese,
Korean, Vietnamese and Filipino descent, among others.
About
42 percent of Asian adults have limited English proficiency, so outreach
typically requires multiple languages, as well as an understanding of the
diversity within the Asian American community.
In
September, an annual survey by APIAVote and AAPI Data found that
Vietnamese Americans were the only group to prefer Trump over Biden, while
Indian Americans were the most likely to vote for the Democrat.
If
Democrats seek to appeal to Asian Americans based on their image of a tolerant,
inclusive America that welcomes immigrants, some Republicans see an opening
based on appeals to social and fiscal conservatism and
anti-Communism. During the campaign, Republican officials stressed Trump’s
support for tax cuts, and even some Democrats conceded such messages could
resonate.
“Having
talked to older Korean American voters as well, they tend to be more fiscally
conservative,” Park said. “Their understanding of American politics is somewhat
tied to the ’70s and ’80s. I know many older Vietnamese Americans vote
Republican because it was a Republican administration that allowed Vietnamese
refugees to come in and resettle.”
Park
and others said that combating disinformation in foreign languages on social
apps like WeChat and KakaoTalk was also a growing challenge this year.
This
year, though, Asian Americans’ preference was clear. The National Committee of
Asian American Republicans even switched sides to endorse Biden, blasting Trump’s
rhetoric as discriminatory and self-aggrandizing.
“This
sounds too familiar to many Asian American immigrants who came from places
where authoritarians make themselves godly above people,” the group said in its
endorsement.
Organizers
said both parties could do far more when it comes to AAPI outreach. The September survey of
Asian American voters found that across the country, 50 percent
had not been contacted by the Democratic Party at all regarding the 2020
elections, and 55 percent of them had not been contacted by the Republican
Party.
Local
groups are trying to make up the difference. Aisha Yaqoob Mahmood, director of
the Asian American Advocacy Fund, said the most effective strategy has been
engaging new AAPI voters on local issues, where the impact on their lives is
more direct.
“Everything’s
so politicized at the top of the ticket and frankly, people don’t like talking
about it all that much,” Mahmood said. “But when you start talking to them
about the school board member who can help determine when your kids can go
safely back to school, I think they are a lot more willing to talk to you.”
She
said the biggest challenge in the lead-up to the Georgia runoffs will not be
the lack of a presidential race at the top of the ticket, but the absence of
local races. Nevertheless, Mahmood said her group plans to ramp up its efforts
“because so much is at stake.”
The
Advocacy Fund launched an “Asians for Ossoff & Warnock” campaign last
week and after Thanksgiving planned to resume door-knocking, something it
avoided during the general election because of the pandemic.
When
it comes to AAPI outreach, some things “won’t cut it” anymore, Tran said.
Campaigns can no longer create ads with a token Asian figure or run their
standard English ads through Google Translate, he said, and they likely need to
hold several events with multiple groups within the AAPI community.
Tran
added that the “model minority” myth — which portrays Asian Americans as
uniquely successful and well-integrated — can obscure the economic challenges
faced by many. More than 50,000 Asian Americans in Georgia lack health
insurance, and more than 40,000, including a third of Native Hawaiian and
Pacific Islanders, live in poverty.
Many
others are blue-collar workers or small-business owners trying to stay afloat.
Tran himself opened a coffee and bubble tea shop called Peachy Corners Cafe in
Gwinnett County just before the pandemic. “We’re not just engineers and
doctors,” Tran said.
The
rise in Asian American political clout has not been lost on the Democratic
Senate campaigns. Warnock last week attended two AAPI mobilization events, and
his campaign has advertised in Korean, Chinese and South Asian newspapers.
The
Korean and Chinese ads say Warnock will work to give opportunities to everyone;
the ad targeting South Asians, in English, says Warnock “is fighting for health
care and an economy that works for all Georgians.” The Chinese ad contains a
small error in place of one of the characters.
Ossoff’s
campaign said he is continuing to build on his efforts to engage with AAPI
voters that started in his 2017 congressional campaign, when they had a field
office in Johns Creek, Ga., which is nearly a quarter Asian, and that they plan
to hire an AAPI constituency director soon.
The
Perdue and Loeffler campaigns did not respond to requests for comment. But both
took steps earlier in the campaign that prompted outcry from many Asian
Americans.
Loeffler
echoed Trump in blaming China for the coronavirus that has killed at least
265,000 Americans. And Perdue mocked Harris’s first name, which is of Hindi
origin, at a Trump rally in October — “Ka-ma-la, Ka-ma-la,
Kamala-mala-mala, I don’t know, whatever,” he said dismissively.
Ossoff
called that “vile, race-baiting trash talk” and raised $2 million in the 48 hours
after the rally. Perdue’s campaign said at the time that the senator “didn’t
mean anything by it.”
But
liberals organizers said Democrats would be making a big mistake if they made
lackluster outreach efforts on the theory that Asian Americans automatically
lean Democratic.
“Demographics
are not destiny,” Park said, quoting his former boss Stacey Abrams. “As we’re
looking at the runoff races, quite frankly it will be absolutely essential to
reach out and do everything we can to turn out young Asian Americans voters. . . .
We went from that marginalized community to the margin of victory.”
