This recent interesting polling data from Gallup finds Asian Americans more liberal or leans Democratic — after initially identifying as independents — than other racial/ethnic groups:
“Overall, 41% of Asians identify politically as Democrats, 41% as independents, and 16% as Republicans. As a result, Asians are above the national average in terms of the percentage of political independents (37% nationwide) and Democrats (34%), and below average in terms of the percentage of Republicans (27%).”
At first, I was kind of surprised by this given my experience growing up in the Northeast, where I found my parents and their peers tended to be at least fairly socially and fiscally conservative. But having now lived in California for over 10+ years, where a majority of Asian Americans do live, you kind of sort of expect those kind of results.
Additionally, Asian Americans tend to be highly educated compared to all other ethnic groups, showing a correlation with higher education and liberalism. But mostly, I have found in my experience is that Asian Americans tend to be fairly apathetic and not terribly involved in civic life and politics — ironically, they also vote to a lesser degree than most and thus a large percentage of Asian Americans are independent and not very ideological and more practical. The few Asian American Republicans I know tend to be small business owners, where Republicans tend to do well with.
