Relative Salience of Ethnicity and Party as Drivers of Asian American Vote Choice
Abstract
In comparison to Black and Latino communities, the role of race and ethnicity in the political behavior of Asian Americans, particularly vote choice, has remained less examined. As a racial group with a wide range of ethnic diversity and weaker history of partisan alignment, the dependency of Asian Americans on ethnic and partisan cues may vary compared to other groups and in different electoral contexts. In particular, it is not clear whether Asian Americans do align with the theory of partisanship as the primary determinant of vote choice, as ethnic cues could be more salient for them. This paper examines the candidate choices of Asian American voters in California in the 2024 election. I look only at cases of voters who share the same specific ethnicity, also defined as their national-origin, with one candidate in the House of Representatives race. I find little evidence that Asian Americans defect from their party to vote for a candidate with a shared ethnicity, suggesting that partisan cues remain more important to Asian Americans than ethnic cues. However, in electoral contexts where partisan cues are absent, such as both candidates being from the same party, there is some preliminary evidence to suggest that the ethnic cue becomes a more primary predictor of vote choice. These findings help support the theory of partisanship as the primary determinant of vote choice for previously understudied minority demographic and can help inform candidate vote predictions.
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