AALDEF’s exit polling efforts part II

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As I mentioned on Wednesday, AALDEF conducted an exit poll during Tuesday’s elections. They queried Asian American (including South Asian American) voters that they saw leaving the polls in the states of DC, MD, VA, PA, MA, MI, NY and NJ. Here is an example of a set of exit poll questions (this one from New York). Before taking a look at the results I want to stress two things:

  1. These are primarily “blue states”
  2. This is data from all groups of Asian voters. I don’t think they’ve released stats yet which break the data down by sub group (e.g., Chinese, Vietnamese, Indian, etc.)

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p>Here are excerpts from AALDEF’s press release (thanks Deepa). I’ve highlighted the data that I found especially interesting and in some instances stripped AALDEF’s commentary/interpretation. Although I think they do great work I find them to sometimes sound “too enthusiastic” in their analysis and I’d rather you guys interpret the numbers (and any perceived biases) for yourselves:

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Asian American voters in eight states continued a decade-long shift to support Democratic candidates, with 79% of those polled favoring Democrats in Tuesday’s congressional and state elections. According to preliminary results of a nonpartisan, multilingual exit poll of over 4,600 Asian American voters, released today by the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF), Democratic candidates in closely-watched races in Virginia, New Jersey and other states were consistently buoyed by Asian American voter turnout.

Most exit poll respondents (87%) said that they had voted in a previous election, while 13% told AALDEF volunteers that they were first-time voters. Over 625 pro bono attorneys, law students, and community activists monitored polling places and surveyed Asian American voters in New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Michigan, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Maryland, and Washington, D.C…

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AALDEF Exit Poll Survey Highlights:

Virginia Senate: After maintaining a slim lead, Democratic candidate Jim Webb was declared the winner by 0.3% of the total vote (49.6%) beating Republican incumbent Sen. George Allen (49.3%), best known among Asian Americans for his derogatory “macaca” remark to a South Asian campaign worker. According to AALDEF’s exit poll of more than 250 Asian American voters, 76% voted for Jim Webb, 21% voted for Sen. Allen, and 3% voted for Glenda Parker.

New Jersey Senate: In this heated Senate race, among more than 370 Asian Americans polled, 77% voted for incumbent Sen. Robert Menendez, while 20% voted for Republican challenger Thomas Kean Jr.–a 57-point margin. 3% of Asian Americans polled voted for other candidates. Among all New Jersey voters, Menendez held his seat by an 8-point margin (53% to 45%).

Maryland Senate: In Maryland’s open Senate seat, among over 200 Asian American voters polled, 73% chose Democrat Ben Cardin, with 24% for Republican Michael Steele, and 3% for Green Party candidate Kevin Zeese. Among the general electorate, 55% voted for Cardin, 44% for Steele, and 2% for Zeese.

Pennsylvania Senate: Among more than 200 Asian American voters polled in Philadelphia, 71% voted for Democratic candidate Bob Casey, while 29% voted for Republican incumbent Sen. Rick Santorum. Among all voters, 59% voted for Casey and 41% voted for Santorum.

Massachusetts Governor: Democratic candidate Deval Patrick, who became the nation’s second African American elected governor, received support from 75% of more than 350 Asian American voters polled in Boston, Dorchester, Lowell and Quincy, with Kerry Healey receiving 21%. Statewide, 56% voted for Patrick, and 35% voted for Healey.

Michigan Proposal 2: … three in four Asian American voters voted No to Proposal 2, which seeks to end race- and gender-based affirmative action programs in education, hiring, contracting, and health initiatives. More than 300 Asian American voters–including Arab Americans–participated in AALDEF’s exit poll survey in Michigan. Proposal 2 passed by a wide margin, 58% to 42% .

Illinois Governor: Democratic incumbent Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich defeated his Republican opponent Judy Baar Topinka with a 10-point lead, 50% to 40%. In contrast, 99% of the 170 Asian Americans polled in Chicago voted for Blagojevich, with 1% for Topinka.

New York Attorney General: Of over 2,300 Asian American voters polled in New York City, 82% voted for Democratic candidate Andrew Cuomo. Republican contender Jeanine Pirro received 14% of the Asian American vote, with 4% voting for other candidates. Cuomo led Pirro 58% to 40% among all voters statewide.

The 2006 Elections mark the 19th year in which AALDEF has conducted a nonpartisan exit poll of Asian American voters. Additional information on Asian American ethnic groups and population growth data in the eight states surveyed is available upon request.

AALDEF volunteers–the majority of whom spoke one of 15 Asian languages or dialects–conducted the multilingual survey, which was translated into nine languages: Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, Khmer, Bengali, Arabic, Punjabi, Urdu, and Gujarati. AALDEF’s multilingual exit polls reveal vital information about Asian American voting patterns regularly overlooked in mainstream voter surveys and provide a snapshot of Asian American voter preferences on candidates, political parties, language needs, and other issues of vital importance to their communities. More detailed results from AALDEF’s exit poll will be released in the coming weeks.

The first question to ask is how different do Asian American voters in “blue states” vote compared to Asian American voters in “red states?” I’d put money down on the guess that there really isn’t much of a difference. We know that Vietnamese and Filipinos trend Republican (I’m sure Taz will help me out with stats here soon) but that almost every other Asian American group trends to the left. At first glance and without a deeper understanding of all of the results it seems like Asian Americans voted overwhelmingly in favor of the Democrats. I’m sure we will be discussing this an other polls in the future as we continue to dissect this election.

18 thoughts on “AALDEF’s exit polling efforts part II”

  1. The first question to ask is how different do Asian American voters in “blue states” vote compared to Asian American voters in “red states?” I’d put money down on the guess that there really isn’t much of a difference.

    latinos in texas tend to be more conservative than latinos in california, so i’d bet against you.

    Michigan Proposal 2: … three in four Asian American voters voted No to Proposal 2, which seeks to end race- and gender-based affirmative action programs in education, hiring, contracting, and health initiatives. More than 300 Asian American voters—including Arab Americans—participated in AALDEF’s exit poll survey in Michigan. Proposal 2 passed by a wide margin, 58% to 42% .

    thank god for white people.

  2. Of course, the primary problem with polling is that people aren’t always honest. When polled, especially in person, there is some tendency to be pressured to give the `right’ answer. This increases the amount of error, but I don’t know by how much. It will take time before groups like the APIA and AALDEF can put together a thorough analysis on the 2006 election and any voting trends that may or may not exist.

    The first question to ask is how different do Asian American voters in “blue states” vote compared to Asian American voters in “red states?”

    My impression is that although many Asian Americans in `red states’ may still lean Democrat, they are probably less blue than those in places such as New York. Take Sugarland, Texas, a suburb of Houston, as an example: according to the 2000 census it is 25% Asian. Nonetheless, it is considered to be strongly Republican territory.

  3. I think it would be more informative to stratify along different Asian groups, occupation, age, and income and then look at the numbers. Sure, as a group Asian Americans tend to vote democrat but the percentages, I bet, will be a lot different among e.g. Indian physicians and businessmen/women versus academics, small business owners etc. I know plenty of Indian physicians or corporate people that vote Republican.

  4. Folks – this constant makaka selfpatting and election news posts is getting boring.

    When do you expect normal programming will resume on Sepiamutiny?

  6. When do you expect normal programming will resume on Sepiamutiny?

    Heheh I was thinking the same thing. I’ve ODd on Allen and the Elections and the Dems taking over and I’m tired. I had a dream about Allen and Lieberman the other day enough said! Can we get something frivilous for a Friday like the infamous Booda Call that is making the rounds of the internet? My amazement isn’t at the actual amaturish trollish call but the stupid people who actually believe it’s real and can’t tell from the fake accent and the non Indian accent!

  8. i guarantee that if there was no election posting some people would be like, ‘how come you don’t post on serious stuff? there’s democracy in action going on…blah, blah.’

  9. It took an election to kill the identity wars of last week. Future identity posts should be around November, every 2 years.

  10. Sorry all but this is normal programming. If you don’t like it you know what you can do 🙂

    Amen! I love Abhi’s political posts. In fact, I think we need more! (which kind of reiterates the point made by GK in #8)

    How about an exit poll of the macacas who read SM!

  12. Waitwaitwait – Arabic was counted as an Asian language? Odd. It’s not at all related. I mean, it’s still interesting to see how “browns” voted, of course, but that’s a fairly glaring oddity.

  13. New Jersey Senate: In this heated Senate race, among more than 370 Asian Americans polled, 77% voted for incumbent Sen. Robert Menendez, while 20% voted for Republican challenger Thomas Kean Jr.—a 57-point margin. 3% of Asian Americans polled voted for other candidates. Among all New Jersey voters, Menendez held his seat by an 8-point margin (53% to 45%).

    I voted in NJ and wrote in for Thomas Friedman. I think he lives in NJ. Menendez was too establishment for my taste and I thought Kean was too green.

  14. Waitwaitwait – Arabic was counted as an Asian language? Odd. It’s not at all related. I mean, it’s still interesting to see how “browns” voted, of course, but that’s a fairly glaring oddity.

    Before the rest of them jump on this statement. Let me direct your attention to this map 🙂

  15. I’m curious if anyone knows the background behind the actual polling. Do these people just stand outside the polls and wait for their “target group” (perhaps a bad choice of words when dealing with S. Asians…) to emerge and then pounce on them with questions? Do they have to have preapproval from the state election commissions of their respective states and have some form of ID? Are the other officials running each precincts usually cool with these folks hanging around?

    The reason I ask is whenever I’ve voted in person (3x versus the rest absentee), I’ve never seen anyone outside (or even inside, for that matter) look like they are pollsters, etc., i.e., non-precinct volunteers.

  17. Ashvin – I know that desi intellectuals like to refer to the Middle East as West Asia, and arguably we have more in common with the Arab and Persian cultures than with those of China and Japan (about a quarter of everyday Hindustani words are Arabic, as I discovered when I studied the language!) but still. I’m curious about this classification, and wondered why they chose to do it this way.

  18. I’m curious if anyone knows the background behind the actual polling. Do these people just stand outside the polls and wait for their “target group” (perhaps a bad choice of words when dealing with S. Asians…) to emerge and then pounce on them with questions? Do they have to have preapproval from the state election commissions of their respective states and have some form of ID? Are the other officials running each precincts usually cool with these folks hanging around? The reason I ask is whenever I’ve voted in person (3x versus the rest absentee), I’ve never seen anyone outside (or even inside, for that matter) look like they are pollsters, etc., i.e., non-precinct volunteers.

    No Desh: I can answer that, if anyone’s still reading this thread.

    I volunteered with AALDEF to exit-poll in NYC (specifically in Kensington, Brooklyn, where there are Pakistanis, Banglas, and Chinese folk).

    And the method is exactly as you described it: we stood outside the polling place (in my case, the polling stations were set up in the gym of a school and the AALDEF volunteers stood in the lobby) and waited for our “target group” to arrive and then we pounced. And so sometimes there were questions among the exit-pollsters as to whether someone was Asian or not. Indeed, one of the ethnicity options on the form was “Latino” because apparently this mistake is made sometimes.

    The exit-pollsters would politely ask Asian-looking people if they’d like to “participate in an Asian American voting survey” and then usually we’d have to explain who we were and why we were there. If they agreed to particpate, we handed them a form to fill out; at my site, we had forms in English, Urdu, Bengali, and Mandarin. 50% participation was pretty standard.

    The agency sponsoring exit-pollsters does have to get approval from the Board of Elections, which AALDEF and its coalition-partners did, and I haven’t heard anything about poll workers being unhappy about the exit-pollsters presence, especially as the latter aren’t allowed into the actual polling area.

    Regarding your not having ever seen exit-polling taking place: I’ve only voted absentee, so I haven’t experienced it either. It probably depends on where you’re voting; I would assume that exit-polling is much more common (among the major media networks, for example) in swing districts where elections are actually in contention, as opposed to in good ol’ NYC.