California Republicans Make Pitch to Asian-American Voters

http://www.kqed.org/.stream/anon/radio/tcr/2014/03/2014-03-12b-tcr.mp3

With midterm elections coming up this year, leaders from the Republican National Committee have been crisscrossing the country stumping for their candidates.

On a recent stop in Orange County, RNC co-chair Sharon Day visited Grace Ministries International, a Korean mega-church in Fullerton. In the auditorium, she worked hard to sell local politicians and the party.

“We’re committed to tell you why the Republican Party is the Asian party. Why that’s where you should be,” Day said.

Asian-Americans have made the biggest shift away from the Republican Party of any ethnic group in recent years. But as the fastest-growing segment of the U.S. population, Asian-Americans are an in-demand voting bloc. And Republicans are on a mission to woo them back.

Day acknowledged the work ahead for her party. Most Asian-American voters have abandoned the GOP. About three out of four Asian-American voters cast ballots for President Obama in 2012.

“By gosh, we’re going to earn your vote,” Day said. “It’s time that we stood with you. It’s time we reached out to you, and it’s time that we share our proud party’s convictions, which have always been there.”

The message resonated with Sam Han, son of the senior pastor and a top aide for a Republican state Assembly member.

“The fact that the co-chair of the national party is coming to a small town like Fullerton, I think that’s a big deal and a great message that we can share with our communities that ‘Look, these people really care,’ ” Han said.

Han said Republican values line up with the church’s positions against same-sex marriage and abortion. That’s what drew him to the party first.

“And then as I got to know more about the party, I’m not just a social conservative, I’m a fiscal conservative,” Han said.

There used to be many more Asian-American voters like Han. Up until the 1990s, Republicans were pulling in about two-thirds of the Asian-American vote, said Karthick Ramakrishnan, a political scientist who runs the National Asian American Survey out of UC Riverside.

But then, he said, things began to change under President Bill Clinton, who had a more pro-business stance than his Democratic predecessors.

“ You also saw a fair amount of interest by the Clinton administration in appointing Asian-Americans and Pacific Islanders to key positions and court positions,” Ramakrishnan said.

Another turning point was Sept. 11.

“The Patriot Act and various dynamics of racial profiling after 9/11, after the Bush administration — that caused a lot of concern among Asian-American voters, particularly among Indian-American and South Asian voters,” Ramakrishnan said.

Around this time, Ramakrishnan said, anti-immigrant rhetoric increased. Complaints may have been directed at Latino immigrants crossing the border illegally. But they made some Asians, who have the highest percentage of foreign-born residents, uncomfortable.

“Asian-Americans pay attention to all of those things and they find that this kind of rhetoric is more likely to be coming from one party,” Ramakrishnan said.

To bring these voters back into the fold, the RNC has hired three California-based staffers to do outreach and to support Asian-American candidates.

Rebecca Lee of San Francisco said she appreciates the effort. She grew up in a household of immigrants from Taiwan who leaned Republican

“A lot of folks in my family are business owners, or they started their own small businesses,” Lee said. “So they tend to see and agree with a lot of the Republican policies around business, taxation.”

She has considered voting for Republicans in the past, but now counts herself as a Democrat. She said she just doesn’t agree with the Republican Party’s national platform on climate change, abortion and immigration.

“There are so many Asian-American families that have families that are torn apart on the different sides of the Pacific,” Lee said. “And so, until they give a little on immigration issues, I don’t see that you will see many Asian-Americans suddenly flock to the Republican Party.”

Some Republican candidates such as Kim Young of Fullerton are getting the message -- at least on immigration.

“Let’s give them some sort of status to stay here so they are not living in fear every single day,” said Young, a first-time candidate for state Assembly from Fullerton.

Young is a naturalized citizen from Korea. She’s banking on attracting other Asian-American voters with her background.

“I became a Republican because, just like all immigrant families do, I watched my parents work hard, struggle,” Young said. “But they also instilled in me the value of individual responsibility.”

Young is one of four Asian-American Republican women running for office in Orange County this year. She said getting elected would go a long way toward showing other Asian-Americans that they can be part of the Republican Party, too.