[Baltimore Sun] Donations to Kamala Harris campaign from South Asian Marylanders soared after her presidential announcement
Read Time:4 Minute, 15 Second
Individual campaign contributions from South Asian Marylanders soared in the week following Vice President Kamala Harris’ announcement that she would be running for president.
Before the announcement, South Asian Americans had been donating an average of almost $2,300 per week to President Joe Biden’s campaign in 2024.
Contributions rose to around $46,000 in the week after July 21, when Biden dropped out of the race and Harris announced her presidential bid, a Capital News Service analysis found.
When the president withdrew from the race, his fundraising entity, Biden for President, was placed under Harris’ name.
South Asians in Maryland donated a weekly average of almost $21,000 to the Harris for President fund from July 21 to the end of August, according to data from the Federal Election Commission.
Donald Trump’s campaign also saw a small spike in donations made by South Asians in Maryland following Harris’ announcement, but it remained low in comparison to contributions made to the vice president. Before July 21, South Asian Marylanders were donating an average of around $350 per week and the donations increased to around $2,300 from the week Harris announced to the end of August, the CNS analysis found.
For this analysis, CNS joined FEC data with a database of South Asian surnames developed by Cal Chengqi Fang, a doctoral student, and Diane Lauderdale, a professor at the University of Chicago. The database is based on names found among immigrants born in India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and just includes names that are fairly specific to those origins.
As the database of surnames may not capture all South Asians in Maryland, CNS’ analysis may likely undercount the actual amount of donations made by the community.
South Asians are people whose origins trace back from Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.
A national survey by nonprofit organization Asian and Pacific Islander American Vote and AAPI Data in September, showed that Harris is ahead of Trump by 38 percentage points among Asian American voters nationwide. Asian American voters who took the survey said that Harris’ identity as a woman was more important than her identity as South Asian.
AAPI Data is a research organization that produces data that accurately tracks trends in Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander communities.
Sharad Doshi, an entrepreneur from Frederick County, emphasized that the South Asian community in the county is more enthusiastic about Harris becoming the first female president than her ethnic background as an Indian American and African American.
“It’s a unique situation. The first female president, also coming from different ethnic groups,” Doshi said.
According to co-chair of the Maryland chapter for South Asians for Harris, Jyoti Mohan, Harris’ identity as South Asian definitely draws interest among the community but it is her policies that would help clinch their vote.
Mohan said Indian Americans, the largest South Asian and even Asian American group in the state, tend to lean democratic and support Democratic policies.
This election cycle has brought high-level engagement among South Asians in Frederick not only for presidential candidates, but also Senate and congressional candidates, Doshi said.
“It played a major role that during [Maryland] governor’s election there were multiple South Asians running for different positions,” Doshi said, adding there were more people from the South Asian community running for the county school board in the previous election.
Bianca Shah, co-chair of the National Youth Committee for South Asians for Harris, said it’s important to translate enthusiasm for Harris to galvanize votes among the South Asian community for the U.S. Senate race.
That’s especially true in Baltimore County, the county with the third highest population of South Asians with a large immigrant population on the east side, according to Mohan.
“One of the exciting parts of this election cycle has been being able to mobilize interest and excitement around the [Angela] Alsobrooks campaign and the Harris campaign, and kind of put them in tandem to make sure that we’re getting up a vote for down-ballot races,” Shah said.
“We’re doing everything at the grassroots levels to try and increase Alsobroooks’ visibility,” Mohan told CNS.
Mohan said that Republican Senate candidate Larry Hogan is “very solidly popular with Indian Americans.”
“When Hogan was governor, there were a whole bunch of South Asians who were appointed to boards, commissions, all kinds of things,” Mohan said.
She added that it is important for Alsobrooks to clinch the U.S. Senate seat in November as Harris is banking on Alsobrooks’ support in the Senate with regard to her policies on maternal and child welfare policies.
There is a concern of another four years of filibustering on passing bills in the Senate if Alsobrooks were to lose the seat.
“I think South Asian votes in Maryland can very well be the margin of victory,” Mohan said, adding that the community is the largest Asian American group in the state.
Capital News Service is a student-powered news organization run by the University of Maryland Philip Merrill College of Journalism.
Happy
0 %
Sad
0 %
Excited
0 %
Sleepy
0 %
Angry
0 %
Surprise
0 %
0
0