By A survey has found that while almost half Indian Americans approve of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s performance, they continue to be steadfastly Democratic despite the apparent courtship between Modi and US President Donald Trump — 68 per cent decide to vote for Joe Biden and 22 per cent for Trump. The survey which was conducted by Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Johns Hopkins University, and therefore the University of Pennsylvania, and released on Wednesday, It was found that Indian Americans voting for incumbent Trump have a way more favourable view of Modi (at a rating of 76 out of 100) than those voting for Democratic candidate Biden (52/100)
The survey comes whilst the 41.61 lakh-strong community finds its voting choices within the spotlight given one, their view on politics back in India and two and the Democrats’ choice of Indian-origin Kamala Harris as vice-presidential candidate. “
Indian Americans have traditionally voted for the Democratic Party — as many as 93 per cent voted for Barack Obama in 2008. The Democrats have, however, been incrementally losing the community’s votes to the Republicans in every election since then.
Almost half the Indian Americans (48 per cent) surveyed approve of PM Narendra Modi’s performance while 32 per cent disapprove.
“Indian Americans have actually become a point during this election during a way that only a few folks could have ever imagined… The spectre of Modi coming to power in 2014 undoubtedly created some cleavages within the Indian American community. And one among those cleavages is that the way Indian Americans view the Prime Minister.
The survey was conducted in September on a stratified sample of 1,200 Indian Americans, said that “contrary to the emerging narrative, Indian Americans favour the Democratic Party to the Republican Party by a greater than two-to-one margin”. The community’s support for Biden (68 per cent) is above that of Hispanic voters (64 per cent) and shut thereto of African American voters (79 per cent).
The survey found that while US-India relations were top priority for less than three per cent of these surveyed when asked, half the respondents said a candidate’s position on India is going to be “very important” or “somewhat important” to their vote. Support for Trump amongst Indian Americans is highest among those that identify as Hindu (22 per cent for Trump) and Christian (45 per cent), while only 10 per cent of Muslim Indian Americans decide to vote for Trump. Almost half Indian Americans (45%) said Harris’s pick made them more likely to choose the election.
While two-thirds (67 per cent) of Democratic Indian Americans opposed Trump’s “Muslim ban” (the administration had placed restrictions on visiting for citizens from Muslim-majority countries), only a fourth (28 per cent) of Republicans do. Interestingly, the sole topic on which Democratic and Republican Indian Americans converge is university admissions. Roughly half of both groups oppose social action in education.
Two other defining characteristics split the Indian American voting patterns: time spent within the US and region. of these who have only lived within the US for 10 or fewer years, only 28 per cent decide to vote for Trump. Similarly, those within the Midwest — a neighbourhood with the very best number of battleground states that would go either way in November — decide to vote for Trump at 27 per cent, while those within the South decide to vote for him at 24 per cent.
Even among the Indian Americans who have registered as Republicans, only 44 per cent “strongly approve” of Trump and 27 per cent “approve” of him.
