Indian Americans and their swing towards Republicans

Exploring the reasons behind Indian Americans' voting patterns

Photo by Natilyn Photography on Unsplash

The 2024 presidential election in the US was a watershed moment in the nation’s politics. Republicans ended up in control of the Presidency, Senate and the House. With this, President-elect Trump would be able to get most of his picks for crucial executive posts approved by a Republican friendly Senate.

Reams of analysis followed from both sides, but I don’t see much being written about the Indian American community. As everyone found out, there was much racial depolarization in this election. The Obama era coalition no longer delivered for the Democrats and much of their constituents ended up swinging to the other side. Other than white men that swung strongly towards Kamala, all other races shifted towards Trump. The Indian American community moved towards Trump as well and I hope to explore some reasons why. I anticipate that the community would become even redder in the coming elections. If that happens, the community could wield the swing vote that could turn states like New Jersey red.

Harris won New Jersey by 5.5 points. That’s a very narrow margin for a Democratic stronghold. Counties like Middlesex County exist where almost half the residents are Indian American. Biden won the county in 2020 by 22 points but Harris could only manage a 8 point victory. That is a massive shift. A massive proportion of Indian Americans are college educated. Considering that college educated voters moved towards Harris this election, the disparity becomes even more stark. This could be a harbinger of things to come for the Democratic Party if there isn’t a course correction.

Blurring the line between legal and illegal immigration

There is a perception that Democrats often blur the line between illegal and legal immigration, clubbing both under the general label of immigration. This hurts high skill legal immigrants the most. Indian Americans are highly represented in skilled legal immigration. Among voters of Indian origin, more than 70% rank immigration as highly important.

Skilled immigration is subject to country caps. No single country of origin can get more than 7% of the green cards in a given year. This hurts Indians the most with queues stretching back to 2012. A number of bipartisan bills have been introduced in Congress to remove country caps but they keep getting blocked. Senator Dick Durbin (D-Illinois) is (in)famous for blocking most of these bills. This led to prominent immigrant advocacy orgs souring on Democrats. Fun fact: You can find more instances of Dick Durbin’s racism here.

Critical Caste Theory

Discussing Critical Caste Theory (CCT) is out of scope for this post, but the Emissary has a good write up on the foundations of CCT. It is the application of Critical Race Theory (CRT) to Indian social systems. CRT posits that racism is not merely due to individual bias but something that’s embedded in legal systems and policies. Similarly, CCT proposes that Brahmins as a group enslaved and oppressed other castes in India.

This theory is then used as a tool for progressives’ pet projects. Case in point is the caste discrimination bill that was passed in Seattle. When the California legislature passed a similar bill, Governor Newsom was sensible enough to veto it, on the grounds that existing civil rights laws were enough to cover caste discrimination.

Crusades like these needlessly antagonize the broader Hindu American community. There might be individual cases of caste discrimination in the US, but there’s no evidence to suggest any broader pattern.

Progressives’ Hinduphobia

There has been a lot of negative coverage of native Indian faith systems in prominent Western media. Media houses like NYT, WaPo and WSJ among others carry many negative editorials. Wikipedia has an entire section dedicated to NYT’s anti India commentary. Parts of stories are fabricated and authors associated with such newspapers often have a political axe to grind. Headlines have a clear political tilt. This ire is mainly directed against the Hindu community. Harvard Political Review has a good explainer on Hinduphobia in the US.

A few months prior to the US election, Bangladesh went through regime change. Sheikh Hasina, the then premier had to flee as the violence inched closer to her residence. The Hindu community faced egregious violence having been seen as supporters of the Hasina government. Yet, Democrats refused to condemn the genocide happening in Bangladesh. This is highly likely due to the Progressives’ influence on the party. The Squad grouping in the House of Representatives is fiercely and consistently critical of India with a particular focus on denouncing Modi and his policies. Ilhan Omar boycotted Modi’s address to the US Congress. She introduced a resolution condemning attacks on religious freedom in India, a claim she pursues to further her agenda. Pramila Jayapal similarly criticized Modi. There are countless more examples.

Donald Trump on the other hand was quick to recognize the genocide of Bangladeshi Hindus on the occasion of Diwali. His greetings came across as genuine and addressing the silent concerns of a majority of the community. Harris’ Diwali greetings felt insincere and lacked authenticity in comparison. It also came in after Trump’s post. For someone who is half Indian, this was bad optics.

Hindus For America First PAC

The first Hindu Political Action Committee (PAC) was formed by Utsav Sanduja. Hindus For America First is a small grassroots organization that was instrumental in getting Trump to post a concrete Diwali message.

The PAC endorsed Trump because he was considerably pro-India than the current administration. For instance, Eric Garcetti (the current US ambassador to India) has behaved highly inappropriately a few times.

Foreign policy is rarely an emotive issue for most voters. However, in elections decided by narrow margins in a few swing states, such issues can sway undecided voters and push them firmly into one candidate’s camp.

Kamala’s hesitation to accept her Indian roots

Kamala leaned into the Black side of her heritage so strongly, that the NYT ran an article justifying why she was Indian even if she didn’t advertise it so much. She tweeted a perfunctory Diwali greeting, after Trump posted. Even the footage in the tweet was from 2022. The effort appeared contrived, motivated solely by Trump’s earlier post.

While following coverage, I couldn’t remember many instances where Kamala would emphasize the Indian part of her heritage. Was she really shy? Had she bought into the progressive narrative? Was there an internal backlash from fully embracing her Hindu roots the way Vivek Ramaswamy has done multiple times, in public? Be what it may, voters can usually sense disingenuousness when they see it.

Kamala has had problematic positions on the Kashmir issue. When Modi visited the US in September 2020, Kamala joined Pramila Jayapal when she introduced a resolution in the House of Representatives criticizing some of Modi’s Kashmir policies. The Kashmir issue evokes sharp emotions, and there were multiple reports that this was a wakeup call for Indian Americans.

DEI

Kamala’s hesitation to accept her Indian roots nicely segues into a discussion on DEI. Indian Americans are one of the groups most affected by DEI principles. In 2023, the Supreme Court did away with affirmative action in college admissions. The jury is out on whether it would help more Indian Americans get into elite institutions. Even if it doesn’t help, the process feels fairer now.

For the Indian American community, the issue with DEI is that they aren’t really considered minorities. Migration to the West has long been viewed as the domain of upper castes, leading some to equate the Indian community in the US with a form of white privilege rooted in their caste background. This is simply frog boiling Indian Americans to become white adjacent. This is a dangerous place to be where you are considered to have benefited from social structures that benefit whites, but still face vestiges of racism because of race and country of origin. There are organizations like Equality Labs that are determined to spread lies about caste based discrimination in the US.

There is much evidence to the contrary. 54% of foreign born Hindu Americans and 65% of US-born Hindu Americans do not identify with any caste. That’s a huge number. A Pew survey found that 98% of Indians in India identify with a caste. There’s simply no evidence for any widespread caste narrative that actors with vested interests try to spread. This narrative is connected to claims by activists that the BAPS temple was involved in caste discrimination while building the nation’s largest Hindu temple in New Jersey. Incidences like these erode the base of support that Democrats enjoyed from Indian Americans.

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While a lot of Indian Americans are drifting away from the Democrats, they aren’t identifying as Republicans but as Independents. Their vote share is up for grabs in an era where swing states have close margins.

The Republicans probably might not get too many votes from the community until problematic Christian nationalist elements either vanish or are suppressed. Ann Coulter told Vivek Ramaswamy to his face that she couldn’t accept him as President because he was Indian. He’s faced intense scrutiny by Christian/MAGA nationalists who consider Hinduism as a devilish faith.

This just goes to show that Indian Americans don’t really comfortably sit within either party. This group is open to persuasion. It would be interesting to see the impact that they have in the next elections, especially in swing states. Would they be successful in flipping New Jersey red?