The Asian American Vote in 2020: Indicators of Turnout and Vote Choice

Abstract

What were the indicators of voter turnout and presidential vote choice among Asian Americans in 2020? We argue that 2020 was a unique year in which race was salient for Asian Americans due to the rise of anti-Asian attitudes attributed to the COVID-19 pandemic and the opportunity to elect a vice presidential candidate of Asian descent. Because of this, racial considerations played a unique role that informed Asian American political participation and attitudes in this election. Using data from the 2020 Collaborative Multiracial Post-Election Survey, we identify the individual-level factors associated with turnout and presidential vote choice among Asian Americans. We find that stronger perceptions of racial discrimination were related to a higher likelihood of turnout and voting in support of the Democratic Party, especially among Asian immigrants relative to the native-born. This study offers new insight for when we can expect racial considerations to inform the politics of Asian Americans, who are the fastest growing racial group in the United States and therefore an increasingly important bloc of the electorate. Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11109-022-09844-9.

Unlinking Linked Fate: The Push and Pull Factors of Group Consciousness

“…Nonetheless, we do not dismiss the role of using political representation messages to mobilize Asian Americans, given its historical and contemporary importance. After all, a record number of Asian Americans have been mobilized to vote in recent elections (Chan, Nguy, and Masuoka 2024), Asian American candidates are increasingly successful in winning elected office (Lublin and Wright 2024;Phillips 2021), and studies show that the presence of Asian American candidates increases Asian American voter turnout (Sadhwani 2022).…”

Discrimination and Civic Engagement of Immigrants in Western Societies. A Systematic Scoping Review

“…This favours the overlooking of the fact that some items measure a facet of discrimination, even though authors use them as indicators of entirely different concepts. Examples of measures that compete with discrimination are the intergroup contact measure of Hayward et al (2018); the structural awareness measure of Tran and Curtin (2017); the belonging measure of Bilodeau et al (2020); the perceived illegitimacy/instability measure of Grant (2008); the cognitive relative deprivation measure of Grant et al (2015); the linked fate measure of Chan et al (2022); the misrecognition measure of Özdemir et al (2024); and the anti-Muslim prejudice measure of Martin (2017) and Shanaah (2022). These redundant predictors may lead to an imprecise estimation of the designated discrimination effect, and to an underestimation of its marginal contribution in explaining civic engagement, which in turn affects the conclusions about its relation to civic engagement.…”