Asian-Americans favour Kerry

2004-09-21 21:37

Los Angeles - Asian-Americans voters favour Democrat John Kerry for president against incumbent George W Bush, the first national survey of the largely untapped segment of the US electorate showed on Tuesday.

The survey, conducted for the Los Angeles Times and published on its website, said that of six million eligible Asian-American voters, about 43% would pick Kerry for president against 36% for Bush.

But the poll, conducted the Tarrance Group, Bendixen and Associates and New California Media between August 20 and 30, also indicated that as many as one in five of them were still undecided about who to vote for on November 2.

The multi-cultural population group was not unanimous in their support of the Democrat, with Chinese, South Asian and Japanese-American voters tilting towards Kerry, while Vietnamese, Korean and Filipino Americans were more in favour of Bush.

While Asian Americans remain a small voting block with only around three million expected to register to vote, their ballots could have some influence over the outcome of the election, the poll showed.

About 20% of Asian-American voters remained undecided, a figure that could prove significant as 22% of them, or 525 000, live in key battleground states such as Florida and Michigan and could influence the tightly-fought polls.

"Traditionally, neither party has spent much effort reaching out to Asian Americans," said David Lee, executive director of the Chinese American Voters Education Committee, which helped support the poll.

"As a result I think you have a very large untapped population," he added.

The survey also indicated that while Asian Americans were largely inclined to vote Democratic in the 2000 presidential race, that balance had thinned in 2004.

Democratic candidate Al Gore had a lead of about 14% over Bush in support from Asian Americans in 2000. Kerry, however, has currently mustered only a 7% advantage, the poll showed.

The poll of 1 004 registered voters was conducted in nine languages across 47 states in the 10 days ahead of the Republican National Convention held in New York from August 30 to September 2, and had an overall margin of error of around three percent.

The survey also indicated that the key electoral issue for Asian Americans - many of whom are new immigrants to the United States - was the economy.

About 47% of those surveyed said jobs and the economy were the single biggest issue for the next president, while only 22% picked the Iraq conflict or the war on terrorism.

The survey indicated that nearly one million more Asian Americans were expected to register to vote this year than in 2000, when 2.4 million signed up.

- AFP