How the Asian voter lights up path to the White House

New York: Veer Mansukhani, 8, is a third grader in Maryland’s Howard County, famed for one of the finest public school systems in America. His classmates at grade level wrestle with homework which asks them to multiply single digit numbers.

“Veer has started calculus,” his father informs us with a proud smile.

Calculus? At 8 years old ? It’s an OMG! moment that crosses you with astonishing consistency in a country where the modern immigration wave that began in the 60s has the demographic data charts awash in colours while the whites are fading away.

Math is just one of the variables.

Why Asians matter

Asian Americans are the highest-income, best-educated and fastest-growing racial group in the U.S, they make up the largest share of recent immigrants. Among all ethnic groups, these traits make for higher voter turnout, according to data crunch by Pew Research.

Most remarkable is their educational outperformance; 49% of Asian Americans have a bachelor’s degree while the general population stacks up at 28%.

The Department of education says that Asians make up more than 35 percent of recent math and science Olympiad teams and 30 percent of all national merit scholarships.

At last count, 54 percent of Asian Americans are registered to vote and 50 percent report voting in the 2008 presidential election. That’s almost all of them.

Asians lean Democratic

Under the national spotlight in Democratic Debate # 1, given their biggest audience yet, both frontrunners for the Democratic candicacy Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders sung Obama’s praises in sharp contrast to the public bickering on the Republican side and even recent history of how parties behave when there is an impending shift of power over the White House.

Both Clinton and Sanders will alienate the groups that support Obama at their own peril. Obama is hugely popular with Latinos, blacks, young people, unmarried women and Asians - all of which the Democrats need to win the nomination and then the big one.

“I am not running for Obama’s third term, I am running for my first term,” Clinton repeatedly says. Yet, she is not putting forward any drastic re-imaging of Obama’s signature policies.

The bulk of jobs listed on Clinton’s campaign website are for data analysts, data miners, analytics experts. Clinton is trying to replicate the Obama backroom data crunching machinery.

Hispanics don’t want to be deported, Clinton did not talk about it in the debate, they wanted her to jab at the Republicans, she did, and it is working for her poll numbers so far. Mine the data and whatever people want will determine policy.

But on the voter’s side, it’s not so much about one candidate over another.

“I started voting in the US elections from 2000 and have always voted Democratic, no matter who the candidate is. The Republican Party is having an identity crisis. They have nothing to say except that Government should get out of everyone’s life.” says Krishnaswamy Venkatesan, 73, who divides his time between America’s two coasts and Chennai. His wife has been voting Democratic too.

Venkatesan’s view is that average American voters care about their personal needs in their backyards while “Indian voters are knowledgeable on core issues.”

Palak Doshi, IT program manager who lives in New Jersey and has been voting for the last 15 years, has moved beyond both camps.

“I was previously a Democrat, then became Republican, and now after seeing all the parties for what they are, I identify with the libertarian school. The government should not interfere in the economy. Libertarians believe in free markets and capitalism,” says Doshi.

Higher income, left of centre

Of the six divisions within U.S Asian groups, Indian Americans are the most Democratic-leaning. Nearly two-thirds (65%) of Indian Americans identify with or lean Democrat, while 18% identify with or lean Republican. In the last election in 2012, Obama’s support was strongest among Indian Americans; 84% of Indian-American voters chose Obama and these are folks who actually turn up on voting day. The same can’t be said for the Latinos.

Less than half of the 23 million Hispanics turned up to vote in 2012. Most adults are non citizens, the children often fall into the “low-income” category, says Pew, the data source of this report.

States that voted for Democrat Barack Obama in the 2012 presidential election have, on average, a higher percentage of households that make $150,000 per year, and a lower percentage of households that make $25,000 or less per year, than the red states that supported Republican Mitt Romney, according to U.S. Census data.

Asian Americans are more satisfied than the general public with their lives, public services, finances and the direction of the country, says a Pew study. That’s clear to see practically round every block.

Cut to New York City.

On an outdoorsy kind of day, Patrick McEnroe is on a far court, rallying with a sparring partner at a public tennis facility. Three other spiffy courts lie empty and inviting. Two cars park up and empty out their passengers - four Indians with a long weekend to kill.

They saunter in, they tap their raquet heads on the court, they examine it like you do a cricket pitch before the toss; only a microphone and a Rameez Raja is missing here.

“Level sariga ledu raa! ( The level of the ground is not right), the leader of today’s tennis session announces.

Ha ha ha ! Life’s good in America.