By Jim Lobe
WASHINGTON, Oct 6 2008 (IPS)

By a margin of nearly two to one, Asian-American voters favour Democratic Sen. Barack Obama over his Republican rival, Sen. John McCain, in the Nov. 4 elections, according to a major new poll released here Monday.

Overall, 41 percent of “likely voters” among the 4,400 Asian Americans polled nationwide by the National Asian American Survey (NAAS) said they intended to vote for Obama, while 24 percent said they supported McCain.

In a number of critical “swing states” – those states whose electoral votes are considered up for grabs by the two campaigns – the margin for Obama was slightly larger, 43 percent to 22 percent, according to the NAAS, a joint project of four major state universities in California and New Jersey and the most comprehensive pre-election survey of Asian-American opinion.

At the same time, 34 percent of “likely voters” said they had not yet decided – a substantially larger percentage than the eight to 10 percent of the general electorate at this point in the campaign who have not opted for either candidate.

Still, Obama, according to the survey, appears to be doing better among all likely Asian- American voters than the Democrats’ 2004 candidate, John Kerry, did in his effort to oust President George W. Bush. While six percent of Asian Americans who voted for Kerry said they intend to cast their ballot for McCain this year, 18 percent of those who voted for Bush four years ago said they intended to vote for Obama this year.

Of the major sub-groups of the nearly 15 million Asian Americans in the U.S., likely voters with South Asian ancestry favoured Obama by four to one (53 percent to 13 percent for McCain). More than two of every ever three Japanese Americans said they supported Obama (60-17 percent), as did Chinese Americans (41-12 percent).

The only sub-group in which McCain led was among Vietnamese, a traditionally Republican community since they arrived here in large numbers after the defeat of U.S.-backed South Vietnam in 1975.

Likely Vietnamese-American voters said they supported McCain by a two-to-one margin – 51 percent to 24 percent, according to the survey, which was conducted from mid-August to Sep. 26, the day of the first debate between the two candidates.

The Vietnamese-American population, however, makes up only 11 percent of all Asian Americans. By comparison, Chinese and Asian-Indian Americans together comprise nearly half of the total Asian-American population.

Along with Latinos, Asian Americans, who now make up about five percent of the U.S. population, constitute the fastest growing minority in the United States. In 1960, they constituted fewer than one million people, or less than 0.5 percent. By 2060, one out of every ten U.S. citizens is likely to have Asian ancestry, according to the latest census estimates.

Three-quarters of Asian Americans are found in just 10 states, particularly in Hawaii and the three continental western states – California, Oregon and Washington – all of which are expected to produce easy majorities for Obama in the election. Several other states with disproportionately large Asian-American populations – notably, New York, New Jersey, Maryland, and Illinois – are also considered safely in the Democratic column.

But Asian Americans also have a disproportionate presence in several “swing states” – including Florida, Virginia, Ohio and Pennsylvania. In these states, where just a few thousand votes could decide the election’s outcome, the Asian-American population ranges from around 125,000 to 185,000, according to a recent survey.

“With such a high proportion of undecided voters, Asian Americans are a critical source of potential votes for either candidate in the final weeks of the campaign,” said Karthick Ramakrishnan, a political science professor at the University of California (UC) at Riverside, and co-author of the report. “Even in battleground states and among those Asian Americans who were interviewed in the second half of September, more than 30 percent were undecided.”

The survey, which was conducted in English, Cantonese, Mandarin, Hindi, Japanese, Korean, Tagalog, or Vietnamese, depending on the preference of the respondent, found that about one-third of Asian Americans identify themselves as Democrats, while only 14 percent consider themselves Republicans, many of them Vietnamese.

More than half of all likely voters among respondents called themselves either independent or non-partisan, a substantially larger percentage than the roughly 37 percent in the general population who claim no party affiliation.

That relative lack of political partisanship among most Asian Americans may reflect at least in part the fact that most members of the larger community arrived in the U.S. as adults.

Of the estimated 14.9 million Asian Americans living in the United States today, 60 percent are foreign born, according to a recent study by Leadership Education for Asian Pacifics, Inc., a California-based think tank. Among Asian Americans of voting age, that figure rises to 80 percent, according to Jane Junn, another co-author who teaches at New Jersey’s Rutgers University.

Their relative lack of partisanship may also reflect the decline of big-city patronage machines that had historically played a key role in organising immigrant communities.

Compared to their population size, Asian Americans are under-represented in U.S. politics; less than one percent of the members of the House of Representatives are Asian American, while they account for only 1.1 percent of the membership of state legislatures around the country.

Of the nearly 15 million Asian Americans, only 58 percent are registered to vote. Based on the respondents’ voting history and the certainty with which they expressed their determination to vote in November, NAAS estimated that three out of four Asian Americans who are registered to vote will actually cast ballots this year. It predicted that Japanese-Americans and Asian-Indian Americans will have the highest rates of participation among all sub-groups.

The survey found that Asian Americans who participated in the 2006 primaries and caucuses favoured Sen. Hillary Clinton over Obama by a two-to-one margin. Among Clinton voters, it found 10 percent who said they intended to vote for McCain in November, and 59 percent who said they would cast their ballot for Obama, with 31 percent undecided.

Excerpt: