In the days leading up to President Biden’s decision to withdraw from the presidential race, a poll from Asian and Pacific Islander American Vote (APIAVote) indicated a 19 percent decline in support for him among South Asian Americans. Now, with an Indian American at the forefront of the Democratic presidential ticket, the response from South Asian organizers has been unprecedented.
“We’ve been inundated with interest that I have never seen before,” said Neha Dewan, who established South Asians for Biden in 2020. “Our phones have not stopped ringing. We have received hundreds of messages, and it’s just overwhelming.”
Anurima Bhargava, founder and director of Anthem of Us and an organizer of a “South Asian Women for Harris” Zoom call, noted the difficulty in energizing voters for Biden before Harris’s presidential run. “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 stated.
In just two weeks, South Asian organizers across the country have held numerous events, such as phone banking, door-knocking, and letter-writing to support Harris. Zoom calls hosted by both South Asian men and women saw tens of thousands of participants within days of Harris’s campaign launch.
“We’ve already launched a Pennsylvania phone bank that’s coming up this weekend that has nearly 300 phone bank and volunteer sign-ups,” remarked Chintan Patel, executive director of Indian American Impact. “The energy has been phenomenal.”
The formation of a multiethnic coalition around Harris has also been well-received by South Asians. Dibya Sarkar, a leader of They See Blue, a South Asian group aimed at increasing voter turnout in battleground states, expressed surprise at the positive response. “I actually didn’t think that people would react to Kamala the way they have. I mean, especially men, white men,” Sarkar said. “So that’s actually really, really, really surprised me in a good way, and I’m really glad.”
Former President Trump has escalated racial attacks on Harris, including claims that she is attempting to conceal her Black identity. Harini Krishnan, one of the co-directors of South Asians for Harris, condemned Trump’s actions. “We see you, Donald, for the racist xenophobe that you are, trying to pit one community against another with your divisive garbage,” Krishnan said. “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, asserting that he is trying to divide communities of color but will not succeed. “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.”
South Asian voters are significant in the U.S., with the 2020 census showing approximately 6.5 million South Asians residing in the country. AAPI Victory Fund co-founder Shekar Narasimhan estimates that there are about 750,000 Indian American voters in swing states like Michigan, Pennsylvania, Georgia, and Wisconsin. In Michigan and Georgia, the number of eligible South Asian voters exceeds the margin of victory 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. Narasimhan added that close to 40 percent of those voters have never cast a ballot.
“What you saw in that poll was a lot of apathy,” Narasimhan told The Hill, referring to the APIAVote poll that indicated declining support for Biden. “The switchover at the top of the ticket, obviously, it’s a plus.”
Narasimhan emphasized the importance of drawing attention to the race, especially for those who were apathetic or unenthusiastic. “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,” he said. “That’s the effort that’s going on, and it’s very organic, and it’s completely spectacular what’s happening.”
Many of these organizing groups did not exist before Trump’s presidency, but within less than a decade, they have established themselves for a moment like this. According to Patel, South Asian organizers were “ready to hit the ground running.”
Rep. Ami Bera (D-Calif.) recalled that when he first ran in 2010, none of these groups existed. “There was very loose infrastructure within the South Asian or Indian American community. So a lot of it was just going out and trying to find a handful of folks that were involved in politics, more involved in the donor community and building some of that.”
Organizers and political strategists believe the key to maintaining Harris’s momentum is to emphasize how her identity helps her understand the challenges faced by common Americans.
While many South Asian political organizers value her heritage identity, they do not want Harris to center her campaign solely on that aspect. “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, stressed the need for Harris to do more to convert support into votes. “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 address economic issues faced by South Asian entrepreneurs, as well as bottlenecks in legal immigration.
South Asians, especially young voters of color, have been leading efforts related to the Israel-Palestine conflict, according to Sree Sreenivasan, former president of the South Asian Journalists Association, who helped organize the “South Asian Men for Harris” Zoom call.
Palak Sheth, an organizer of the “South Asian Women for Harris” call, noted, “An area of particular importance for South Asians is the war in Gaza, and what’s happening with the genocide in Gaza.”
Nikil Saval, the first South Asian elected to serve as a state senator in Pennsylvania, pointed out the diminished support among South Asians concerned about Biden’s policies in Gaza.
Harris has not explicitly diverged from Biden’s strong support for Israel, but during a press meeting after speaking with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, she raised concerns about the scale of civilian deaths in Gaza and has shown more empathy towards the Palestinian plight than Biden.
“What has happened in Gaza over the past nine months is devastating,” Harris said after the July meeting with Netanyahu. “The images of dead children and desperate hungry people fleeing for safety, sometimes displaced for the second, third or fourth time. We cannot look away in the face of these tragedies. We cannot allow ourselves to become numb to the suffering, and I will not be silent.”
Sree Sreenivasan commented on Harris’s stance, stating, “I have no illusions that she’s going to be able to say much necessarily, but I do think that it’s an issue that she has already shared a few sentiments on that feels slightly different than what has come up before in the Biden campaign.”
Neha Dewan mentioned that the youth team within South Asians for Biden had struggled to engage young voters due to apathy linked to the war in Gaza and Biden being the incumbent. However, this changed after Harris became the nominee.
“The reaction that we have gotten from the youth team is unbelievable. People who were never interested and hadn’t voted are suddenly coming out of the woodwork and saying how can we get involved,” Dewan told The Hill.
“There’s definitely been a shift because the biggest concern brought to us from youth organizers was that they didn’t like Biden administration policy on the war in Gaza,” said Bejay Chakrabarty, a youth organizer with South Asians for Harris. “More people are coming in now.”
“It feels like she is much more willing to listen to us,” Chakrabarty added.