AALDEF: Asian American Vote in 2012 Varied by Ethnic Group and Geographic Location

Back in November, it was widely reported from a national exit poll that President Obama captured 73% of the Asian American vote. Since election day, I had blogged about another poll and study entitled Behind the Numbers: Post-Election Survey of Asian American Voters in 2012. Well now, there is an even more comprehensive poll and study that has been released by the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF):

“Today, the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF) released detailed findings from its nonpartisan multilingual exit poll of 9,096 Asian American voters in the November 2012 Presidential Elections, the largest survey of its kind in the nation. The results indicated that Asian Americans vary in political beliefs and on policies across ethnic lines and by geographic location. While three-quarters (77%) of Asian Americans polled voted for Barack Obama for President … AALDEF, a 39-year old New York-based national organization, polled Asian American voters in 37 cities across 14 states on Election Day:  New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Maryland, Michigan, Illinois, Georgia, Louisiana, Florida, Texas, Nevada, California, and Washington, D.C. The largest Asian ethnic groups in the exit poll were Chinese (31%), Asian Indian (13%), Bangladeshi (12%), Vietnamese (12%), Korean (11%), Filipino (9%), Pakistani (3%), Arab (2%), Indo-Caribbean (1%), and Cambodian (1%).”

So the national exit poll showed that 73% of Asian Americans voted for Obama, and the other poll/study showed 71%, now we have in this very targeted exit poll/study a whopping 77% of Asian Americans. The breakdown for support by ethnicity is quite interesting and varied:

Obama capturing 77% of the Asian American vote is very impressive, considering the political affiliation of Asian Americans by party affiliation (broken down by ethnicity):

Though this is the first time I think I have ever seen “Arab” as party of an Asian American study… which causes me to think how accurate this overall study is. However, what I thought was most interesting was the voting breakdown by state:

Considering how liberal and Democratic California is — or at least perceived to be, I was very surprised to see Asian Americans in the Northeast and mid-Atlantic states outvoted Californians for Obama. Given how conservative Louisiana is and that Vietnamese Americans traditionally vote Republican (there is a large Vietnamese American population in New Orleans), it’s no surprise how Asians Americans in Louisiana voted.

The complete list of slides provided by the AALDEF on their poll/study is available as a .PDF file.