A new survey finds US President Donald Trump has lost a significant chunk of his support among South Asian American voters, with 25% of those who voted for him in the 2024 presidential election planning to vote for the Democratic Party in the crucial November midterm election.
Majority report discrimination
The survey’s findings mirror the results of other polls confirming a shift towards the Democratic Party among Indian-American voters. In addition, 60% of South Asians plan to support the Democratic Party as it battles to wrest control of the House of Representatives and the Senate from Trump’s Republican Party, according to the poll conducted by HIT Strategies. The survey provides a key insight into the likely voting patterns of Indian-Americans, who accounted for roughly 90% of the 800 voters polled. At a time of rising anti-Indian sentiment in the United States, 90% of the voters surveyed said they had faced discrimination or knew someone who had, with almost half having experienced it personally. Another survey conducted by AAPI Data in August found that 66% of Indian-Americans plan to vote for the party’s candidates in the House of Representatives and the Senate, with just 18% backing Republican candidates in elections to the former and 22% in elections for the latter. These polls indicate a looming setback for President Trump after a strong showing among Indian-Americans in the 2024 presidential election. A Carnegie Endowment survey conducted just before the 2024 election found that 32% of the community planned to back Trump as support for the Democrats fell. Support for Trump was more pronounced among Indian-American men, with roughly 40% of those surveyed before the 2024 polls saying that they planned to vote for Trump.
“Among those who believe that what happens to other South Asian Americans has a lot of impact on them personally, seven in ten are planning to vote for Democrats (71%). A majority of these voters oppose the Trump administration’s ICE enforcement in cities (58%), and they are far more likely to say that discrimination and civil rights are top issues when deciding how they will vote (32%),” the survey finds.
