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CBS News: the Asian American Vote in Virginia

By John | Tuesday, October 28, 2008 | Comments

I was taking a look at the Asian Americans for Obama website, and came across their post on the Asian American Vote in Virginia. The news story profiles Asian Americans who support McCain and those who support Obama. Virginia is surprisingly a key swing state this year where there are enough Asian Americans to actually help swing the state one way or another. One part of the news piece which I think CBS got wrong was that news reporter Ramy Inocencio states that Asian Americans vote in high numbers – which is WRONG. Asian Americans between the ages of 18 to 25 are the least likely to vote of any demographic within the United States, and Asian Americans overall vote less than whites, blacks, and Hispanics.

Ramey Ko

Thanks for the repost and link, John! I think Ramy Inocencio may have been referring specifically to Asian American turnout in Virginia, which may actually be quite a bit higher than in the rest of the country. This seems possible given that AAPIs in Virginia possess demographic characteristics correlated with higher voter turnout, e.g., higher levels of affluence and education than AAPI populations in other states. I'd have to do more research to be sure, but there is considerable variation in AAPI voter turnout from state to state.

Allan Chang

Yeah that's true Ramey - I read that Asian Americans in the four counties that make up Northern Virginia make up 15% of the area's population. Next to the national average this is 3 times more? The next hub of 'our' demographic is in the southeast corner of the state at around 5% of the population I think. Everywhere else in the state is lower. So it'd make sense that the AAPI's in Northern Virginia would vote way higher than the rest of the national AAPI population. As for the national population I read in a recent article someplace that AAPI's have higher numbers of naturalized citizens who can and do vote versus the Hispanic community.