New York, (Samajweekly) Asian-Americans have been the fastest-growing group of eligible voters in the US over roughly the past two decades and since 2020, says a new study as the country goes to polls to elect a new president this year.
Their number has grown by 15 per cent, or about 2 million eligible voters, in the past four years — faster than the three per cent growth rate for all eligible voters during that span and the 12 per cent for Hispanic eligible voters, says a Pew Research Center study.
This November, a projected 15.0 million Asian Americans will be eligible to vote, making up just 6.1 per cent of all eligible voters, according to the Washington-based think-tank’s projections.
Overall, more than half of all Asian Americans in the US (58 per cent) are eligible to vote. By comparison, 72 per cent of the total US population is eligible.
“Asian Americans are less likely than Americans overall to be eligible to vote because a significant share are immigrants who are not US citizens,” the study said.
Asian immigrants who are not eligible to vote include permanent residents (green card holders) and those in the process of becoming permanent residents; those in the US on temporary visas; and unauthorised immigrants.
“Asian Americans are the only major racial or ethnic group where more of its eligible voters are naturalised citizens than US-born citizens (56 per cent vs 44 per cent),” the study noted.
About four in ten Asian eligible voters (41 per cent) are ages 50 and older, and they have relatively high levels of educational attainment.
They are also more likely than the general eligible voter population to have a postgraduate degree of some kind, such as a master’s degree or law degree.
The study also found that as of 2022, more than half of Asian-American eligible voters (55 per cent) live in only five states, and they typically lean Democratic.
California has the highest number of Asian-American eligible voters by far (4.4 million). The state is home to nearly a third (31 per cent) of the entire US Asian electorate.
The states with the next-most Asian-American eligible voters are New York (1.2 million), Texas (1.1 million), Hawaii (580,000) and New Jersey (575,000).
They make up 55 per cent of the electorate in Hawaii, the only state where a racial or ethnic group other than single-race White, non-Hispanic eligible voters are the majority.
