Don't take Asian American voters for granted

The return of the Democratic National Convention to Chicago inevitably brings back to mind the events of 1968 and the violent clashes between police and anti-Vietnam War protesters.

I can trace a personal connection to that time: My father served in the South Vietnamese military alongside the U.S. Allied Forces. After the war ended, my family lived through a period of doubt, finally receiving political asylum from the United States after President Jimmy Carter signed the U.S. Refugee Act of 1980 to deal with the mounting humanitarian crisis of the Vietnamese "boat people."

The Refugee Act resettled hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese refugees to the U.S., and I and my family were among the beneficiaries. We had the chance to pursue our American Dream and become part of what is now the fastest-growing voting bloc in the country: Asian Americans.

The 2024 presidential campaign is the perfect occasion to talk about a transformative demographic and political shift since then: the rapid growth in the number of Asian American voters and the increasing visibility of Asian Americans in politics.

I believe Asian American and Pacific Islanders will be the decisive voters in 2024. Their population represents more than the margin of victory in the 2020 presidential election in each of the most hotly contested swing states.

In all-important states like Nevada, for example, state canvassing data show President Joe Biden won by 33,596 votes, or a 2.4% margin, while the state’s Asian American population is about 120,000, or 8.7% of voters there. In Pennsylvania, where Biden won by 80,555 votes, a 1.2% margin, the Asian American population totals around 275,000, or 4% of voters.

Yet traditional campaign strategy has yet to take full account of these voters, and a dive into the numbers shows us it is past time to build more effective outreach to the Asian American community.

There’s power in targeted outreach

Asian Americans are, in fact, the fastest-growing group of U.S. voters: Their numbers have grown by about 15% in the past four years, according to the Pew Research Center.

And Asian Americans may well represent the quintessential swing voter, as Amy Qin recently pointed out in The New York Times: While they lean Democratic as a group (72% voted for Biden in 2020), they have a generally loose party affiliation. According to the research group AAPI Data, cited by Qin, 31% of Asian Americans identify as independent; of those who identify as Democrats, only 59% identify as strong Democrats, a figure well below the 67% overall among self-identified Dems.

Neglecting Asian American voters would be courting disaster in elections.

In my own election in 2022 to become state representative for the 13th District, I saw firsthand the power of direct, targeted outreach to Asian communities. We ran a language-accessible and inclusive campaign, with campaign materials in more than 12 languages, voter registration and a focus on getting out the vote during early voting and by mail-in ballots.

This experience is the inspiration for the national level PAC, API Forward, which has a goal of engaging Asian American voters and directly supporting AAPI candidates. As the saying goes, all politics is local, and it is these strategies, especially knocking on doors and hearing Asian American voters' concerns firsthand, that are needed in an election.

According to the Asian American Voter Survey, 42% of Asian American voters say they have not been contacted by either of the two major political parties this election season; 50% say they have not been contacted by the Democratic Party; and 57% report they have not been contacted by the Republican Party.

As an elected official and a proud member of the Argyle Street "Little Saigon" community in Chicago, I know how important it is for Asian American communities to feel a sense of representation. I have great hopes that Kamala Harris, herself an Indian American, can reach these voters. But we need to organize effectively to make it happen.

State Rep. Hoan Huynh, D-Chicago, is the first Vietnamese American to be elected in Illinois and represents the 13th District.

For more information about API Forward Pac, visit APIForward.org.

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