By Shawn Steel
If
Mitt Romney wants to reach 270 electoral votes, and win the presidency, he must
aggressively target Asian-American voters.
Asians
-- Chinese, Japanese, Indians, Filipinos, Vietnamese and Koreans -- are the
nation's wealthiest, most highly educated and most aspirational voting
demographic. Their numbers have grown by more than 40 percent in the last
decade, and they are concentrated in key electoral battleground states like
Nevada, Michigan, Colorado, Ohio, Florida, Virginia and
Pennsylvania.
Despite surveys showing Asian-Americans as more favorable toward
Obama and government than the general public, their actual voting behavior in
recent elections offers Romney an opportunity. Look to 2009, the year
Republicans recovered from the Obama blowout and stormed back to retake the
governorships of Virginia and New Jersey.
Republican Bob McDonnell targeted Asian-Americans energetically,
even though they constitute just 5.9 percent of Virginians. He employed multiple
strategies, such as asking Asian business owners to publicly communicate their
support by putting McDonnell signs in their storefronts. His campaign
communicated with Asian-American voters in their native languages in everything
from mailers to radio ads to yard signs. A postelection survey of Asian-American
voters in Northern Virginia found that nearly 60 percent voted for
McDonnell.
Middlesex, New Jersey's second most populous
county, is a perennial Democratic bastion, but in 2009, it went for Chris
Christie by 48 percent to 44 percent -- almost precisely his statewide margin.
Not coincidentally, Middlesex now has among the highest percentages of
Asian-Americans outside of Hawaii and the San Francisco Bay
area.
Asian-American voters are not immune to the national backlash
against Obama's big government blowout. Their values and attitudes, by and
large, hew more closely to the GOP economic policies, emphasizing hard work,
parental involvement in education, the permanence of marriage and family unity.
They link success to individual achievement rather than government
beneficence. Romney doesn't
need to win the Asian-American vote outright. It would be enough to improve
substantially on the 35 percent that John McCain won. Given the clusters of
Asian-American voters who now reside in battleground states, a serious outreach
strategy along the lines of McDonnell's successful gubernatorial campaign
illuminates a pathway to victory.
There
are hundreds of media outlets in battleground states through which Romney can
reach Asian-American voters cheaply in their native languages -- especially to
Korean, Vietnamese and Filipino audiences, where pro-Republican sentiment is
strongest. The Korean Times, for example, has 13 bureaus in the U.S. and a daily
edition circulation larger than the Los Angeles Times.
Nevada, Michigan, Colorado, Ohio, Florida, Virginia and
Pennsylvania between them hold 111 of the 270 electoral votes needed to win the
presidency. Obama carried them all in 2008. Romney needs to flip them.
Asian-Americans comprise, on average, 3.8 percent of the population of those
states, which could exceed the margin in a close election. A relatively modest
investment by Team Romney in Asian outreach, out of the tens of millions it will
pour into these states, could put him in the White House. And if, as Democratic
strategists fear, turnout by Asian-Americans and other minorities falls below
2008 levels, the decline would occur chiefly among Obama supporters, amplifying
any inroads that Romney makes.
Shawn
Steel is California's Republican National Committeeman and a former chairman of
the California Republican Party.
