PAKISTAN CHRONICLE
The AAPI Vote in 2026: What Has Shifted Within This Diverse Electorate?
Experts say nine in ten registered Asian American and Pacific Islander voters plan to vote on 3 November, but fear, new voting rules and thin funding could keep many away from the ballot box
By Tariq Khan
Source: American Community Media (ACoM) national news briefing, Friday, 16 October 2026
HOUSTON — With the midterm election just weeks away on Tuesday, 3 November 2026, four national leaders and researchers told reporters at an American Community Media (ACoM) news briefing that Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) voters are engaged and growing in number, but that fear, confusion, new restrictions on voting and a shortage of funding could stop many of them from being counted.
The virtual briefing, “The AAPI Vote in 2026: What Has Shifted Within This Diverse Electorate?”, was held on Friday, 16 October 2026, and moderated by Sunita Sohrabji of ACoM. The speakers were Christine Chen, Executive Director of APIAVote; Mary Lou Akai Ferguson, Executive Director of the Asian American Power Network; Shekar Narasimhan, Chairman of the AAPI Victory Fund; and Karthick Ramakrishnan, Founder and Director of AAPI Data. There are almost 17 million AAPI eligible voters, and 56% of them cast a ballot in 2024.
Opening the briefing, Sohrabji reminded reporters that AAPI voters have often been the margin of victory, pointing to former President Joe Biden’s 2020 win in Georgia, where he carried the state by fewer than 12,000 votes while AAPI turnout rose several-fold to 62,000.
A Referendum on the President
Pakistan Chronicle’s Tariq Khan asked the panel what can be predicted for the midterm election on 3 November. Ramakrishnan replied that midterms are usually a mix of local factors and a referendum on the president. In 2018, he said, the nationalisation of the election was very apparent, with Trump’s favourability closely tied to the vote for the House and the Senate, and that pattern is similarly strong this year. “It’s shaping to be primarily a referendum on President Trump,” he wrote.
Survey findings from AAPI Data and APIAVote show how engaged voters are. Some 90% of registered AAPI voters say they plan to vote in the 2026 midterm elections, and 64% say they are absolutely certain they will. Democratic candidates currently lead the congressional vote, and party identification runs at roughly two Democrats for every Republican, with about a quarter to a third of the community identifying as independent. Ramakrishnan, a political scientist, cautioned that intention is not the same as turnout. He noted that fear is a strong emotion among respondents, while excitement is low, and that turnout could fall below the record level of 2018 because of added barriers rather than lack of motivation. Akai Ferguson agreed that engagement is driven more by opposition to the current administration’s policies than by enthusiasm for what is on the ballot.
Immigration Enforcement Reaches South Asian Households
The data also show the weight of immigration enforcement on South Asian families. Among AAPI respondents, 41% said they or someone they know had started carrying papers in the past year; among South Asians the figure was 53%, slightly higher than among Latinos. Support for deporting all people living in the country illegally fell from 38% in December 2024 to 29% in February 2026, and 72% say spending on enforcement is too high. Ramakrishnan linked the shift to enforcement actions in Los Angeles in summer 2025 and in Minneapolis in February, and to the Hyundai plant raid.
For Pakistani and Bangladeshi Americans, Ramakrishnan offered a notable data point. In 2016, the one year the group was able to survey those communities separately, Pakistani and Bangladeshi Americans were even more left-leaning than Indian Americans, who had been the most left-leaning Asian American group. He said smaller communities are often left out because sample sizes are small and funding is limited, noting that the cost of a survey has fallen from between one and two million dollars to about $50,000, and he invited anyone connected to funders to start a conversation.
Barriers at the Polls, From Indiana to Texas
Chen, whose organisation is the nonpartisan arm of the effort and supports local groups in more than 32 states, said the philosophy of making voting accessible to everyone eligible has weakened. She described states narrowing identification options, restricting mail voting and drop boxes, shortening deadlines and limiting early voting. Indiana has dropped student ID as acceptable identification, and Texas, Florida, Georgia, Arizona, Ohio and Utah have made mail voting more difficult.
Texas drew particular attention. Chen said Tarrant County, the state’s third most populous, cut polling locations by 92, to 224 from 316 in the 2022 midterms, affecting 1 million registered voters, including more than 75,000 AAPI voters, with the closed sites mainly in predominantly minority areas. Ramakrishnan added that extreme gerrymandering in California and Texas means fewer competitive districts and therefore less influence for AAPI voters.
Chen also warned of tactics that create fear and confusion, including talk of ICE and law enforcement at polling places, even though that is illegal. She said voters should check their registration after the Supreme Court allowed the administration to keep using the Department of Homeland Security’s SAVE database to check voter rolls, and should know that they can ask for a provisional ballot if their name is missing. She added that the Department of Justice had sued California a day earlier over a list of alleged non-citizens on its voter rolls.
Grassroots Groups Face a Funding Squeeze
Akai Ferguson said the Asian American Power Network, founded in 2022 after the Ossoff and Warnock runoff in Georgia, is on track to double its on-the-ground outreach compared with the 2022 midterms. Its member organisations had knocked on 450,000 doors and held complete phone conversations with more than 85,000 Asian Americans. In Michigan, 26,000 Asian Americans had already cast early ballots, thousands more than in 2022, in a state where the average Senate margin of victory is 55,000 votes.
But she said funding for voter mobilisation across the whole sector is about half of 2022 levels, partly because of fear of political retribution. The cuts have ended programmes that work, including Georgia’s “Chai and Chat” sessions, the hiring of Korean American and Chinese American organisers in Nevada, and training for local social media influencers.
Shekar Narasimhan: “An Existential Election”
Narasimhan said AAPI voters under-voted every major group in 2016, with turnout below 50%, and that the electorate has grown from 6.5 million to close to 14 million voters. He said there was a double-digit shift from Democratic to Republican support among AAPI voters in 2024, although Ramakrishnan said in the chat that vote files are too roughly coded to say how many voters switched rather than how newly eligible voters and lower Democratic turnout changed the result. The AAPI Victory Fund is concentrating this year on Alaska, Texas, Georgia and Michigan, and Narasimhan said campaigns now routinely seek help reaching communities in Chinese, Korean, Hindi, Bangla and Urdu.
A Message for Every Registered Voter
In the chat, Tariq Khan urged that a powerful message be broadcast for all registered voters to wake up and cast their vote by mail, through early voting or on Election Day, 3 November. Sohrabji put that question to the panel. Narasimhan answered that this is an existential election and that AAPIs should stand up for democracy. Akai Ferguson said the stakes are extremely high and stressed pushing out correct information without amplifying fear or misinformation. Chen urged listeners to check on family and loved ones and help them make a plan to vote, saying one phone call could be the difference between someone staying home and casting a ballot.
Chen asked reporters to amplify “Ready, Set, Vote: A 5-Step Checklist”, which covers the following: check your registration; know your state’s ID requirements; understand what is on your ballot at vote411.org; decide when you will vote, whether early in person, by mail or on Election Day; find your polling place; and return your ballot early. Voters can also call the multilingual hotline at 888-API-VOTE, and in-language materials are available at apiavote.org.
The Role of Community and Ethnic Media
All four speakers said community media have a central role. Ramakrishnan said many AAPI voters are still not contacted by campaigns, that community media are trusted messengers, and that repetition matters, because first-generation immigrants lead busy lives and may need six or seven reminders. Narasimhan said ethnic media help reach hard-to-reach populations in their own languages. Akai Ferguson and Ramakrishnan both warned that misinformation and false claims about non-citizen voting are expected after Election Day, and that counting can take weeks in states such as California. ACoM’s next Friday briefing will focus on misinformation.
Meet the Speakers
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Christine Chen
Executive Director, APIAVote Christine Chen is Executive Director of APIAVote, which she led as its founding executive director from 2006 to 2008 and returned to in January 2011. Under her leadership, APIAVote has expanded its partnerships to 28 states and built research, polling and training programmes that mobilise Asian American and Pacific Islander voters. From 2001 to 2005 she was national executive director of the Organization of Chinese Americans, and in 2001 Newsweek profiled her as one of 15 women who will shape America’s new century. |
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Mary Lou Akai Ferguson
Executive Director, Asian American Power Network Mary Lou Akai-Ferguson is an organiser and strategist who serves as Executive Director of the Asian American Power Network. She previously founded Akai Strategies, coaching first-time women of color candidates and staff in the South. Her earlier roles include campaign manager and later Chief of Staff to Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, AAPI Outreach Director for Senator Elizabeth Warren’s 2020 presidential campaign, and founding team member of the Organizing Accelerator. She was named a Forbes 30 under 30 Local Leader (Atlanta). |
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Shekar Narasimhan
Chairman, AAPI Victory Fund Shekar Narasimhan is Chairman and Founder of the AAPI Victory Fund, one of the first SuperPACs focused exclusively on building the political power of the Asian American Pacific Islander community. In business he is Managing Partner at Beekman Advisors, which advises on real estate, mortgage finance and affordable housing, and a co-founder of the Remergent Communities Fund. He chairs the Virginia Housing Development Authority, serves on the boards of Enterprise Community Partners and the Democracy Alliance, and served on President Obama’s Advisory Commission on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. |
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Karthick Ramakrishnan
Founder and Director, AAPI Data Karthick Ramakrishnan is executive director and founder of AAPI Data and a political scientist who has held leadership roles in academia, government, public policy and philanthropy. He was previously executive director of California 100, founding associate dean of UC Riverside’s School of Public Policy, and a professor of political science and public policy for 19 years. He has published seven books, including Citizenship Reimagined (Cambridge, 2020) and Framing Immigrants (Russell Sage, 2016), and holds a BA from Brown University and a PhD in politics from Princeton University. |
