South Asians rally behind Kamla Harris in droves

South Asian groups have rallied behind Democratic presidential nominee Kamla Harris in droves since President Joe Biden dropped out of the race in favor of his vice president of Indian and African descent.

A poll from Asian and Pacific Islander American Vote (APIAVote) showed a 19% drop in support for Biden among South Asian Americans in the days before he quit the race, according to The Hill.

Now, with an Indian American at the top of the Democratic presidential ticket, the phones of South Asian organizers “have not stopped ringing,” the political news site reported.

“We’ve been inundated with interest that I have never seen before,” said Neha Dewan, the founder of South Asians for Biden in 2020 as cited by The Hill. “Our phones have not stopped ringing. We have received hundreds of messages, and it’s just overwhelming.”

READ: Kamala Harris gaining ground over Trump in polls (August 8, 2024)

Anurima Bhargava, the founder and director of Anthem of Us and one of the organizers of a “South Asian Women for Harris” Zoom call, also told the Hill it had been a “tough year” to get people excited to turn out and vote for Biden. That all changed once Vice President Harris started running for president.

“I think for, for young and old, it’s been a tough year to try and get people really energized. And I think what we’ve seen in the last two weeks is a real space for hope on multiple fronts,” Bhargava was quoted as saying.

In a span of two weeks, South Asian organizers have hosted dozens of events across the country, including phone banking, door-knocking and letter-writing in support of Harris. In the first few days after Harris launched her candidacy, both South Asian men and women hosted Zoom calls with tens of thousands of people in attendance.

“We’ve already launched a Pennsylvania phone bank that’s coming up this weekend that has nearly 300 phone bank and volunteer sign-ups,” Chintan Patel, the executive director of Indian American Impact, said. “The energy has been phenomenal.”

READ: ‘One of Our Own’: Kamala Harris’ ascension sparks AANHPI community (July 26, 2024)

South Asians have also been happy to see a multiethnic coalition form around Harris. “I actually didn’t think that people would react to Kamala the way they have. I mean, especially men, white men,” said Dibya Sarkar, a leader of They See Blue, a South Asian group that works to drive out the vote in battleground states, was quoted as saying. “So that’s actually really, really, really surprised me in a good way, and I’m really glad.”

Former President Donald Trump has ramped up racial attacks on Harris, including a new line about the vice president attempting to hide her Black identity.

“We see you, Donald, for the racist xenophobe that you are, trying to pit one community against another with your divisive garbage,” Harini Krishnan, one of the co-directors of South Asians for Harris, told The Hill. “Kamala Harris is a Black woman, a South Asian American woman and has spoken repeatedly with pride about both of her heritage and roots and represents all our communities in everything she is.”

South Asian organizers have dismissed Trump’s attacks, saying he is “trying to divide” communities of color and will “not succeed.”

 ‘South Asian Women for Harris’ raises over $250,000 (July 25, 2024)

“Trump has been part of a concerted effort to either erase race or use race to divide America. Yesterday, he tried and failed once again,” Bhargava added. “Vice President Kamala Harris, and all of us in America, are so much more than the limits he imagines.”

According to the 2020 census, there are about 6.5 million South Asians in the US. AAPI Victory Fund co-founder Shekar Narasimhan estimated there are about 750,000 Indian American voters in swing states Michigan, Pennsylvania, Georgia and Wisconsin.

In Michigan and Georgia, there are more eligible South Asian voters than the margin of victories in the last election. In Pennsylvania, there are 85,000 eligible South Asian voters — Biden won the state by 80,555 votes in 2020, according to an August report from AAPI Data.

Close to 40% of those voters have never cast a ballot, Narasimhan added. “What you saw in that poll was a lot of apathy,” he told The Hill about the APIAVote poll showing the dip in support for Biden. “The switchover at the top of the ticket, obviously, it’s a plus.”

“I think the question is, how do we ensure that for all that group that was apathetic or unenthusiastic or had sort of not paid attention that we do bring attention to this race and to make sure that people know that somebody who looks, who thinks like us, who … is a first-generation immigrant, is on the ticket,” Narasimhan said. “That’s the effort that’s going on, and it’s very organic, and it’s completely spectacular what’s happening.”

Organizers and political strategists believe the best way to continue building on Harris’s momentum in the community and across the country is to focus on how her identity helps her understand the struggles of common Americans.

Indian American groups endorse Kamala Harris for President (July 22, 2024)

While many South Asian political organizers value her heritage identity, they do not want Harris to focus her campaign on just that, according to The Hill.
“We have to reintroduce her as the person that she is, this multidimensional American with this origin story, and how she understands your problems in your life situation,” Narasimhan said. “How are we going to make life better for Americans, including you? But the origin story is what I think will resonate.”

Pawan Dhingra, a South Asian studies professor at Amherst University, said Harris “needs to do more to bring this support to the ballot box.”

“She can talk about the issues that people care about, not as in a general policy way, but also lean into them in terms of how as, you know, an immigrant, a child, a child of immigrants, as an Indian American, how those issues matter to her.”

Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.) added that Harris should continue to work on “addressing economic issues” that South Asian entrepreneurs face, as well as bottlenecks in legal immigration.