Donald Trump, who is seeking re-election, is making a big dent in the Indo-American voting bank.
Washington:
US President Donald Trump has made inroads into the Indo-American voting bank, the largest ever by a Republican president, according to a poll that sent disturbing signals to Democrats that support for this influential ethnic community cannot no longer be taken for granted. .
The survey conducted by the Indiaspora and Asian Americans & Pacific Islanders (AAPI) Data on Tuesday showed that a majority of Indo-Americans still support former Vice President Biden, the Democratic Party candidate for the US presidential election on November 3.
He revealed that Trump, 74, seeking re-election, was making a big dent in the Indo-American voting bank despite Biden having a strong relationship with the community and had played a key role in bilateral relations through the past. a few decades. Biden, 77, also made history last month by selecting Senator Kamala Harris, 55, as vice president.
According to the survey, 66% of Indian Americans are currently in favor of Biden and 28% of Trump, while 6% are undecided.
Notably in the 2016 presidential election, 77% voted for former US Secretary Hillary Clinton and 16% for Trump. In 2012, up to 84% of Native Americans voted for Barack Obama.
Dr Karthick Ramakrishnan, professor of public policy and political science at the University of California, Riverside and founder of AAPI Data who authored the investigation, said Indo-American support for Trump in the event tipping point of the indecisive Indian. Americans would probably hit the 30% mark.
“Democrats should absolutely be concerned about ensuring that they are conducting sufficient outreach among Indo-Americans,” said Indo-American congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi.
“Democrats should conduct sufficient outreach among the different groups that make up Indo-Americans, because every vote is going to count, especially in those battlefield states as the survey result indicates,” he said. -he declares.
There are a lot of Indo-Americans, for example in the main battlefield states like Pennsylvania, Michigan, Florida and North Carolina among others and they certainly could, together with other Americans d Asian origin, being part of the tipping factor, he said, saying Indo-Americans would finally return home to the Democratic Party.
Seema Nanda, Visiting Scholar, Harvard Law School Labor and Worklife Program and former CEO of the Democratic National Committee, said: “It’s a vote (of Indo-Americans) that this research shows, absolutely, cannot be taken for granted. “.
While support for Biden fell compared to Clinton in 2016, support for the Republican Party fell from 19% to 16% in those four years.
“Given the growing political importance of the Indian diaspora in the United States, it is no surprise that they are being courted from both sides of the aisle,” said Mr. Rangaswami, founder of Indiaspora.
“It’s great that the two main political parties have started to realize how essential it is to reach out to Indo-Americans – our impact will only increase over time,” he said.
Milan Vaishnav, director of the South Asia program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said: “The Trump campaign has gone to great lengths, frankly, to reach out to Indo-Americans, including putting together a nice video ad featuring featured Prime Minister (Narendra) Modi and Howdy Modi in Houston last November, showing the camaraderie between the President of the United States and the Prime Minister of India. “
Describing Trump as a polarizing factor, Ohio State Assembly Representative Niraj Antani said there were many reasons for the change in voice.
<< Raising awareness of the president (to the community), (him) going to India and standing with the Prime Minister (Modi in Houston and Ahmedabad). (His) neutrality on issues such as the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, repeal of (section) 370, as opposed to Vice President Biden's opposition, has polarized the community, ”Atani said.
The shift of Indo-Americans from Democrats to Trump for the first time was reported by New York-based Al Mason, co-chair of Trump Victory’s Indo-American finance committee.
Mason, who conducted a survey in the battlefield states of Florida, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Georgia, North Carolina, Virginia and Texas, said the results show up to 50% of potential Indo-American voters, including the vast majority have traditionally voted. for Democrats in the last presidential election, will leave the Democratic Party and vote for Trump in 2020.
“This massive defection could add tens of thousands of new Trump voters to major battlefield states and could very well end up helping secure the president’s re-election,” Mason said, disputing the results of the latest survey, claiming that the Indian swing. Americans to Trump are much more important than those reported by the Indiaspora Survey and AAPI data.
“Indo-Americans are able to make a difference in several states that could be close to this election, such as Florida (87,000), Pennsylvania (61,000), Georgia (57,000), Michigan (45,000 ) and North Carolina (36,000) and maybe even Texas which has 160,000 Indo-American voters, ”Ramakrishnan said.
Currently, there are 1.8 million Indian Americans in the United States who are eligible to vote.
(Except for the title, this story was not edited by GalacticGaming staff and is posted from a syndicated feed.)
