According to a study conducted by Asian & Pacific Islander American Vote (APIAVOTE), Kamala Harris, the presumed Democratic contender for president, has an 18 percentage point advantage over her Republican opponent Donald Trump in favourability ratings among Indian Americans. In a memo on the current status of the US Presidential race, Jen Q'Malley Dillon, the chair of the Harris campaign, mentioned the APIAVOTE findings on July 24.
It featured surveys on a wide variety of topics. The polling among Asian Americans, which also included people of Japanese, Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean, and Filipino ancestry, contained the results of Indian Americans. On July 10, 11 days before President Joe Biden terminated his campaign due to pressure from Democrats, and in support of Harris taking the top place on the ticket, the internal survey was made public. She is still not the party's de facto nominee.
The poll measured the favourability ratings of Biden, Trump, Harris, and Nikki Haley, the former US Ambassador to the UN who is also of Indian descent like Harris, among Asian Americans. A combined total of 54 per cent Indian Americans said they have a “very favourable” to “somewhat favourable” impression of Vice President Harris, which was 19 percentage points more than Trump’s 35 per cent.
While Kamala Harris defeated Haley by 21 percentage points as well, she trailed her boss, Joe Biden, by just one percentage point with 55% of the vote. The community's support for Biden has significantly decreased, as demonstrated by the head-to-head contest between the two candidates. Of those surveyed, just 46% said they would vote for President Biden in the event of elections, while 29% said they would vote for Donald Trump. Up to 20% of respondents either did not respond or had not made up their mind.
That is a precipitous fall from 2020, when 72 per cent of Indian Americans surveyed by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a think-tank, said they will vote for Biden in a pre-poll survey, while 22 per cent said they will go with Trump. This fall is likely a reflection of the general lack of enthusiasm for a second term for Biden even though he is liked and seen favourably.
55% of Indian Americans who participated in the APIAVOTE survey stated they intended to vote for Democratic candidates in the US Senate race and 52% indicated they would support Democratic candidates in the House of Representatives election. With 29% of the town likely to vote for Republicans in the Senate race and 31% for Republicans in the House election, the Republican party has made some progress in the community.
The population of Indian Americans in the US is between 4.16 million and 4.4 million, accounting for roughly 1.4 per cent of the US population of more than 333 million. Only 2.62 million Indian Americans are US citizens of which 1.9 million are registered voters, which is 0.82 per cent registered voters in all of the country. These numbers may seem to make the community look inconsequential numerically, but that is not accurate.
Once firmly Republican, Virginia has become consistently Democratic due to the large number of Indian Americans and other people of foreign heritage who live and work along the state's northern border with Washington. According to the community, it is crucial in swing states where presidential elections are decided by extremely narrow margins of victory. The last time, Biden won Wisconsin by a margin of 0.63 percentage of the vote. According to O'Malley Dillon's report, the election between Trump and Harris in 2024 will be "tight." Furthermore, every vote matters in close races.