Asian Americans drawn to Dems, new poll finds

Maryland voters included for the first time, providing a blueprint for campaigns heading into ’08 elections

In the poll of 264 Asian-American voters in Rockville, Silver Spring and Kensington — the only Maryland jurisdictions surveyed — 72 percent said they chose Cardin over Republican Michael S. Steele (25 percent) and other candidates (3 percent). Cardin won the election with 54 percent of the vote; Steele received 44 percent.

Voters who crossed party lines in the Senate election largely benefited Cardin: Nine percent of Republicans and 68 percent of unaffiliated voters said they voted for Cardin. Five percent of Democrats surveyed said they voted for Steele.

‘‘I think it reflects the kind of issues Senator Cardin was running on and his past track record with the community,” said Del. Susan C. Lee (D-Dist. 16) of Bethesda. The findings are ‘‘a good sign for me and my fellow Democrats.”

Fifty-one percent of Asian-American voters surveyed in Maryland were registered Democrats versus 16 percent who were registered Republicans.

‘‘In some ways the Democratic Party’s done a better job in addressing the issues of most concern for Asian Americans,” said Jayne Park, executive director of the Asian Pacific American Legal Resource Center in Washington.

The resource center is one of 30 groups that organized attorneys, law students and volunteers to conduct the multilingual exit poll of 4,700 Asian-American voters in 23 cities across nine states and Washington, D.C., during November’s general election.

‘‘I think many Asian Americans drift in the direction of the dominant tide of opinion ...,” said James G. Gimpel, a professor of government and politics at the University of Maryland, College Park. ‘‘So in Maryland, more end up as Democrats.”

The results in Maryland largely reflect the trends in other states, said the report from AALDEF, a national organization that promotes civil rights for Asian Americans. Fifty-nine percent of the voters surveyed were registered Democrats; 12 percent were Republicans; and 27 percent were unaffiliated.

Twenty-nine percent of voters in the Maryland poll said they were unaffiliated.

‘‘Probably the most noteworthy fact of Asian-American voters is the number that register but register unaffiliated,” Gimpel said. ‘‘It’s a group that’s largely neglected by the parties.”

The Asian-American community ‘‘is not a monolithic group,” he warned.

In Maryland, the four largest groups surveyed were Chinese (40 percent), South Asian (22 percent), Filipino (13 percent) and Vietnamese (12 percent).

‘‘I think they [political parties] need to get to know communities and counties and treat them not as a pan-ethnic bloc ...,” Gimpel said. ‘‘You can lose votes if you walk into a Chinese-American community and with a wave of the hand address them as Korean.”

Park agreed.

‘‘I really think that there’s a large segment of the community that’s up for grabs,” she said. ‘‘So it’s really important for both parties to pay attention.”

The poll had a small sample size in Maryland, where it was conducted for the first time, and was ‘‘not at all” intended to be representative of all Asian-American voters, said Glenn Magpantay, a staff attorney for AALDEF.

‘‘We’re not saying this is the end-all be-all,” he said. ‘‘Maryland has a growing Asian-American community, and we want to continue this project.”

Census data from the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission show that Montgomery County residents identifying themselves as Asian or Pacific Islander grew from 10.8 percent of the county’s population in 1997 to 13.4 percent in 2005.

Asian-American voters in Maryland said that the most important issues for next year’s presidential candidates to address are the economy and job market (26 percent), health care (19 percent) and the Iraq war (19 percent).

‘‘The survey shows that Asian Americans are more, in a sense, assimilated into the mainstream,” said Chung K. Pak, a special adviser to the Korean American Association of the State of Maryland and the League of Korean Americans of Maryland. ‘‘War and health care [have] become important issues. It’s not different than the mainstream.”

The number of first-time voters is a positive development, community leaders said. Six percent of Maryland voters said they were voting for the first time.

‘‘I think what we can take from that is Asian Americans are a growing segment of the electorate in Maryland,” Magpantay said.

Read the Report

Go to www.aaldef.org