New report on Asian Americans and the election

by Guest Contributor Angry Asian Man, originally published at Angry Asian Man

Guess what, Asian American voters? According to a new national survey released today, you—yes, you!—could play a pivotal role in the outcome of next month’s presidential election. They sent out a press release: Comprehensive new survey shows Asian Americans could play key role in outcome of presidential election. Believe it.

This groundbreaking study, released at press conference this morning in Washington DC, was conducted by researchers from four leading universities: Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey; University of California, Berkeley; University of California, Riverside; and University of Southern California.

The 2008 National Asian American Survey shows that 41 percent of Asian Americans are likely to favor Barack Obama, while 24 percent support John McCain. In battleground states, where either candidate could win on Election Day, Obama leads with 43 percent of Asian Americans supporting him and 22 percent favoring McCain.

But the key finding of the study is the high proportion of undecided Asian American likely voters: 34 percent. Among the general population, national polls conducted since the major party conventions show that undecided voters are approximately 8 percent of the electorate.

The multi-ethnic, multi-lingual survey of more than 4,000 Asian Americans likely to vote in the election was conducted from August 18 to September 26. It’s the most comprehensive survey to date of the political views of Asian Americans, with interviews conducted in English, Cantonese, Mandarin, Hindi, Japanese, Korean, Tagalog and Vietnamese.

I haven’t read over the study very carefully yet, so I’m not sure about the methodology, but I do like the fact that it was a multilingual study. Typically, many Asians aren’t accounted for in mainstream surveys because they’re usually conducted in English or Spanish… and well, they just don’t talk to a lot of Asians.

As an Obama supporter, I’m pleased to hear that a large number of fellow Asian Americans plan on voting for him. And I get it—there’s also a significant number of you out there supporting John “I Hate The Gooks” McCain. I get it. Sort of. No, actually, don’t. I really don’t. But you gotta do what you gotta do. We’re not going to see eye to eye on this.

For more information about the National Asian American Survey, go here. Download the press release, which has a good summary of the survey and its findings, here. Or download the full report here in PDF form.

Photo credit: Rock the Asian American Vote Long Sleeve T-Shirt, courtesy of Archipelago-Inc.com.