Conservatives made inroads among Asian American and Pacific Islander voters in the 2024 election, but some political experts who work closely with the community say there is still uncertainty about how the growing voting bloc will cast their ballots in the future.
A national NBC exit poll showed the majority of Asian American voters chose Harris but pointed to Trump gaining 5 points among the voting bloc since the 2020 election.
Karthick Ramakrishnan, executive director of AAPI Data, said some early data from 2024 suggests the electorate is moving toward the center.
Ramakrishnan, whose organization tracks the demographics and political characteristics of Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander communities, said the past three presidential elections show Asian voters are a persuadable voting population, he said.
A significant portion of the Asian American electorate is made of naturalized citizens who did not grow up in a Republican or Democratic household, Ramakrishnan said. Additionally, many in the voting bloc are first- or second-time voters.
“Their party identification is weaker, and they’re more persuadable,” he said. “They’re less set in their ways in terms of how they’re going to vote — party has a weaker effect.”
Lily Trieu, executive director of Asian Texans for Justice, was not surprised with the election results. Leading up to the 2024 election, the organization published three reports profiling the Asian American voters in Texas.
“Even in the weeks and months leading up to the election, we saw in our research that Asian Americans were worried about the economy and the cost of living,” she said.
She said data from early voting showed similar voting participation rates among Asian Americans in Texas. Given the growing population, Trieu said she was impressed by the comparable voter turnout in the community.
Both political parties made efforts to reach Asian American voters, Trieu said, adding she thinks outreach should go further than political signs and television ads.
“We know that the last couple of cycles, Asian voters have shifted to the left, and we now know after this last election that they’ve swung back to the right,” Trieu said. “AAPIs aren’t loyal to any one party, which means that our votes are out there to be courted.”
Some national exit poll data suggests Republican support among Asian American and Pacific Islander voters in Texas is stronger than in other parts of the country.
Data on how the electorate voted in Texas is scarce, but a Washington Post exit poll showed 55% of Asian voters in Texas voted for President-elect Donald Trump, while 42% voted for Vice President Kamala Harris.
Historically, Asian American voters in red states have been split down the middle in terms of how they vote, Ramakrishnan said.
“I would expect that the Asian American vote in Texas to be closer to fifty-fifty than nationally,” he said.
The 2024 American Electorate Voter Poll, conducted by experts from Barreto-Segura Partners Research, the African American Research Collaborative, and Harvard University, also showed a shift toward Republicans among voters in Asian American and Pacific Islander communities nationwide.
The poll surveyed Black, Latino, Asian American, Native American and white voters, and the sampling pool of respondents was representative of the demographics of each state.
Of the Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders who participated in the poll in Texas, 48 percent said they supported Harris, and 46 percent expressed support for Trump, according to the American Electorate Voter Poll. Nationally, 61 percent of AAPI respondents said they voted for Harris, while 35 percent said they voted for Trump.
“It’s not too different from what I’ve seen for survey data that have collected data in Texas among Asians and Pacific Islanders in the past where the AAPI community in Texas is more Republican-leaning than the AAPI community in the rest of the country,” said Harvard professor Taeku Lee, a lead pollster on the project.
Texas is “more heavily Republican” than other states that have high concentrations of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, Lee said.
Another reason for the closer margin in Texas could be related to a heavier concentration of some Asian American populations in the state compared to other parts of the country.
Political party affiliation has varied between the different segments of the Asian American community.
Vietnamese voters, for example, have historically leaned Republican, Lee said. Texas has the second highest concentration of Vietnamese Americans — 324,854 — in the country, behind California, according to AAPI Data.
Although some data show that trend is changing nationally, Vietnamese voters in Texas still vote “pretty heavily Republican,” Lee said.
From 2022 to 2023, Collin County had the largest Asian population growth in the country, with people of South Asian descent accounting for a significant portion of the increase.
Leaders of North Texas-based organizations that work closely with South Asian Americans from both sides of the political spectrum told The Dallas Morning News the health of the economy was highlighted as a major driving factor for voters in their communities. They said they’re both seeing increased political participation in their circles.
Sanjay Narayan, a board member of the Texas Asian Republican Assembly, said the increase in support for Trump among Asian and Hispanic voters is a “resounding victory.” He said the economy, the southern border and international conflicts were top of mind for South Asian voters he has interacted with.
“At the end of the day, people came to this country to buy into the values of freedom, free speech and due process that all of us share,” Narayan said. “That’s not unique by race.”
Narayan said he thinks the South Asian community in North Texas votes Democrat but added he’s seen a growing number of South Asian voters openly supporting Trump and the Republican Party.
“It’s all a question [of] margins and directions,” Narayan said. “I think it has definitely gotten less blue this cycle.”
Political signage in support of the Republican Party in different languages spoken in India, including Tamil and Telugu, was seen in parts of Collin County leading up to the 2024 election.
Narayan said the signs signaled growing political activism among South Asian voters who lean right.
“It will be a test, to be honest with you, whether this is a concerted effort and whether it will be sustained, but I have hope that it will be,” he said.
Chanda Parbhoo, founder of SAAVETX, a left-leaning organization, also noticed a small shift in Asian voters to the Republican Party compared to the previous two presidential elections.
She, like Narayan, said concerns about the economy and the southern border seemed to be major factors behind South Asian voters who voted Republican in 2024. She, however, thinks misinformation played a role in some South Asian Americans voting for Trump.
In August, Chinese for Affirmative Action reported that between June 2023 and June 2024, the civil rights organization found more than 600 pieces of disinformation disseminated through social media platforms popular among Chinese-speaking communities.
Parbhoo said she, similarly, heard some in the South Asian community following and sharing false narratives, particularly about the southern border.
“I think the simple talking points really stuck with the larger South Asian community,” Parbhoo said.
Despite Harris’ loss, Parbhoo said her organization has seen a surge in volunteers following the 2024 election.
“I think they’re continuing to see people elected who don’t have the best interest of the community, so we’re seeing another surge of people looking to engage so that it doesn’t happen again,” Parbhoo said.
