Center for Social Innovation
The Asian American Voter Survey, released Monday, examined Asian Americans’ and Pacific Islanders’ attitudes about key issues leading up to the elections in November. It found that while hate crimes and education continue to be significant to Asian Americans, the group’s priorities also lie in issues like health insurance, the economy and the environment.
In the past, political parties haven’t sufficiently appealed to the electorate across all those issues, said Janelle Wong, a co-director of AAPI Data, the research organization that conducted the survey. And there’s still plenty of opportunity to activate Asian American voters.
“Most of Asian American politics covers two topics: hate crimes and affirmative action,” Wong said. “Many people, including candidates, think about Asian Americans as very single-dimensional or dual-dimension, but they don’t think about these complexities and how to really appeal to the broader Asian American agenda.”