California Asian Votes Could Determine the Clinton-Sanders Race
Asian-American voters could play a pivotal role in California’s 2016 presidential primary, considering that they make up around 11 percent of the state’s electorate
According to NBC News, as California heads into what some are predicting to be a close Democratic primary, Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) community organizations in the Golden State have been busy pushing AAPI voters to head to the polls on Tuesday. One group is also planning to visit voting sites in central California to ensure language assistance is available to voters with limited English proficiency.
This comes as Hillary Clinton secured a majority of delegates, with a combination of pledged and unpledged “superdelegates,” to become the presumptive nominee of the Democratic party, according to an NBC News tally Monday.
Kelly Osajima, voter engagement manager of Asian Americans Advancing Justice – Los Angeles, told NBC News that her organization has partnered with 20 AAPI groups to reach out in 10 Asian and Pacific Islander languages — including Chinese, Tagalog, and Vietnamese — to infrequent voters who live in Los Angeles and Orange County.
As part of the Your Vote Matters 2016 nonpartisan campaign, Osajima said more than 150 bilingual volunteers have made 32,000 phone calls since May 11 and have spoken with 5,000 AAPI voters, a group that she said is often overlooked by mainstream campaigns.
“These are the voters who don’t get the phone calls from the Democratic or Republican candidate campaigns,” Osajima said. “Their doors don’t get knocked on. They don’t get mailers.”
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