The Open Secrets of the Model or Marginalized Minority: Political Campaign Participation of Asian Americans in the 21st Century

Abstract

With Asian American population on the rise, Asian Americans have more power than ever in political elections. While qualitative methods have been used to measure this uptrend in Asian American political participation, a thorough and cohesive quantitative study on the topic has yet to be done. Therefore, we utilize machine learning and dictionary-based matching to identify the most accurate numbers for Asian American political participation, categorized by political affiliations, geography, gender, etc. We find that Asian American political participation tends to the Democratic party, is predominantly male, and is proportional to the population size of the individuals respective state.