Texas contains one of the largest populations of Asian American voters in the country. And as the Democratic primary comes down to Ohio and the Lone Star state, Texas’ Asian American population may be a deciding factor in who will be the next president. A local Austin news station reported (video) on the Asian American vote’s significance in Texas, and suggested that while Asian Americans in California went to Clinton, her attention to the Latino population could jeopardize Asian Americans’ loyalties to the New York senator. Cross-posted:

Asian American vote could play key role in election 2/25/2008 8:15 AM By: Heidi Zhou This is the year that Asian American voters could unlock the door to the presidency. “There absolutely is an Asian swing vote. Demographics show Asians are growing faster than Hispanics and apparently have more political participation,” Harvey Kronberg said. Kronberg is a News 8 Austin political analyst and the editor of the Quorum Report. The census shows Asian Americans make up five percent of the national population which has more than doubled in ten years. And now, Texas is one of the top five states where Asian Americans reside. If members of that community vote the same way they did on Super Tuesday when they voted 3-1 for Clinton, Obama could be in trouble. “I think he probably needs more experience. Because from here jump to here, that needs a lot of work,” Chialing, an Austin area resident said. And voters said that Obama’s inexperience coupled with Clinton’s outreach to Asian Americans has them leaning toward Clinton. “Hillary Clinton’s closer to the Asian American Community,” one Austin area resident said. But some experts say she’s been too busy swooning Hispanics to do the same in Texas, possibly with some dire consequences. “A constituency that should favor her may be more of an afterthought and could go to Obama,” Kronberg said. It’s an afterthought that could make all the difference once the March 4 Texas Primary arrives.

The text report is basically a transcript of the video report. Overall, while this doesn’t tell a complete story about the Asian American vote (Kronberg is unclear why he thinks the APIA constituency “should” favour Clinton over Obama), it’s a little funny to me that a local news channel did a better job exploring trends in Asian American voting than Andersoon Cooper did. Cross-posted: Reappropriate

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