New Delhi: As the US Presidential election is approaching, it is expected that a significant majority of Indian Americans are expected to vote for Democratic nominee Joe Biden. A new report released by Indiaspora, an organisation that conducts data and policy research has shared the survey details.
Experts are of the view that two out of three Indian Americans currently favour Democratic Presidential candidate, Joe Biden, although there has been a significant uptick in their support for incumbent Donald Trump.
Speaking to ETV Bharat, Prof Rajan Kumar Centre for Russian and Central Asian Studies, School of International Studies JNU said, "Most of the people will still vote for democrats for a reason that the US society is getting polarised. The white supremacist has become proactive in a number of places that are scaring a lot of minorities.
Referring to the Presidential debate, when Trump was asked whether steps would be taken to control or contain the violence which has been perpetrated by the 'white supremacist', Prof Rajan said," Trump simply turned his eye away and refused to answer, this is creating fear not only among Black Mexicans population but also the other minorities".
The minorities in places like Texas, Kentucky in the Southern United States are dominated by the white people and they are not multicultural. In those areas, it becomes difficult for the black and the minorities to function or travel in the night because there is a fear that they might be attacked for no reason but just because of their 'colour', he added.
According to sources, sixty-six per cent of Indian American voters favour Biden as their candidate of choice in the presidential election, 28% favour the incumbent Donald Trump, while 6% are undecided.
While Joe Biden has a sizeable majority of the anticipated votes, the Democratic numbers are lower than in 2016, where Indian Americans overwhelmingly (77%) voted for Hillary Clinton versus the 16% who voted for Donald Trump.
However, 67% of Indian Americans had said they would vote for Clinton in 2016 pre-elections – a number comparable to this year’s potential vote for the Democratic candidate. Over 80% had supported former U.S. President Barack Obama in 2012.
Fifty-four per cent of Indian Americans have been identified as Democrats, 16% as Republicans and 24% as Independents as per the report. The survey results are derived from AAPI Data’s 2020 Asian American Voter Survey which consisted of 1,569 (+/- 2% margin of sampling error) Asian American voters (including 260 registered voters identifying as Asian Indian margin of sampling error of +/- 6%).
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Almost all (98%) of the Indian Americans surveyed said they would vote in the upcoming election while 54% said they voted in the primaries this year.
"There was a time when Trump visited Gujarat and a section of Indian voters who strongly supported Trump as they thought that Trump would have different policies for Mexicans and Indian Sikhs, Gujaratis and for the major population from South India.
But the trend is changing now for various reasons including 'white racism', attack on minorities and also because of the fact that Trump's economic policies are not effective especially in terms of the pandemic. These factors have triggered fear in the mind of the supporters that the future is not as secure as expected when Trump came to power", the Professor added.
"I will not necessarily go by the argument which says that the Indian voters have shifted to Trump. But now Indian voters think that Trump might lose the election. It is very likely that most of them who have been voting for Trump, would now vote for Joe Biden", he points out.
He underlined that there is a certain section of 'Gujarati' people who might vote for Trump because of the Modi-Trump bonhomie but in context of the larger diversified image of India, it cannot be agreed to the contention that they would vote for Trump. Adding that he is in constant touch with the Indian Americans in the US, Rajan Kumar says "Certainly they will not vote for Trump and 80-90% of Indian Americans say that they support Democrat and would vote for Joe Biden.
He also pointed out that Kamla Harris's Indian roots is a crucial factor this election and have been a talking point at the diaspora campaign events.
Both the Trump and Biden campaigns are touting their support for India to woo the 1.8-million Indian-American voters, who have a strong presence in battleground states such as Florida, Pennsylvania and Michigan. Indian-American populations in swing states, such as Pennsylvania, Michigan and Florida are large enough to tilt the race one way or the other.
According to a survey by Application Programming Interface (AAPI) Data, which tracks demographic data on Asian-Americans and Pacific Islander communities, there are 87,000 Indian-American voters in Florida, 61,000 in Pennsylvania, and 45,000 in Michigan.
