Print

Mail

wiki links

Candidates wooing Asian-Americans

Asians have become a critical swing voter bloc in the US presidential election race, with rival parties courting them ahead of another intense White House contest.

Don Nakanishi, director of the Asian-American studies center at the University of California, Los Angeles, said: "If this is a close election, then the ways in which the Asian-American vote swings could have a very decisive impact."

The top five states where Asian-Americans reside are California, New York, Texas, Hawaii and New Jersey, and all, with the exception of Hawaii, are "very, very significant" in the elections because of the high number of electoral votes each carries, Nakanishi said.

Studies have shown that Asians tend to vote mostly for the Democratic party. A rapidly growing group, there are now 14 million Asian-Americans in the US, making up 5 percent of the total population, government figures show. Some 7 million Asian-Americans are eligible to vote and close to 3.5 million have registered to vote in the election.

In the California Democratic nomination battle earlier this month, about 75 percent of Asian voters cast ballots for Clinton compared with 23 percent for Obama, reports said. That's almost as high as the percentage of the black vote of 78 percent that went for Obama.

But in the run-up to the fight, Obama narrowed Clinton's lead to such an extent that the Asian vote suddenly became pivotal.

With the solid backing from Asians, Clinton carried 54 percent of the Democratic electorate in California, leading Obama by 14 percent and significantly increasing her electoral votes.

The Asian-American community is also poised to play significant roles in contests in Wisconsin, Hawaii, Ohio, Texas, Pennsylvania and North Carolina.
This story has been viewed 507 times.