The Case of Asian Americans

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Politics, Groups, and Identities

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The influence of candidate race and ethnicity: the case of Asian Americans

Sara Sadhwani

To cite this article: Sara Sadhwani (2021): The influence of candidate race and ethnicity: the case of Asian Americans, Politics, Groups, and Identities, DOI: 10.1080/21565503.2021.1877749 To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/21565503.2021.1877749

Published online: 01 Feb 2021.

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The inﬂuence of candidate race and ethnicity: the case of Asian Americans

Sara Sadhwani Pomona College, Department of Politics, Claremont, CA, USA

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY Do voters use the race or ethnicity of a candidate in selecting whom Received 19 March 2020 to support? This paper examines the voting behavior of Asian Accepted 14 January 2021 Americans in elections in California. The analysis hinges on co- KEYWORDS partisan elections stemming from California’s open primary system Asian American; voter where two candidates from the same party compete, and thus a ’ behavior; political candidate s party no longer serves as a reliable cue for voters at participation; vote choice; the ballot box. Using surname matched vote returns for seven voting rights act state assembly and two congressional elections between 2012 and 2018, I ﬁnd evidence of bloc voting in every race where an Asian American candidate is pitted against a non-Asian. When Asian candidates compete, however, evidence of polarization at the national origin level is found. The ﬁndings have theoretical implications for understanding the dynamics of co-ethnicity and descriptive representation for Asian Americans, as well as practical implications for the study of elections and minority voting rights.

Introduction n 2014, Chinese American David Chiu and Latino David Campos1 squared off in a hotly contested state assembly general election race in Northern California. Both candidates were Democrats, having advanced from California’s top-two primary in which the highest vote earners proceed to the general election regardless of party. Chiu narrowly defeated Campos by a margin of 2.2 percentage points. The race between two racial and ethnic minorities is emblematic of the kind of demographic change that has been occurring in California for the last three decades, and of the change to come across the United States. Asian Americans are the nation’s fastest growing immigrant group and the Pew Research Center projects Asian Americans will surpass Latinx as the largest immigrant group in the nation by 2055 (Lopez, Ruiz, and Patten 2017). With this growth have come questions about the potential influence Asian Americans might have on US elections and the extent to which Asian Americans might behave as a voting bloc. This article asks: Do Asian American voters – a highly diverse community, defined by multiple languages, cultures and countries of origin – support Asian American candidates? If they do, are Asian American voters’ support for Asian

American candidates observably divergent from Latinx or other voters? Finally, can we expect subgroups of Asian Americans such as Chinese, Vietnamese or Indian voters to support Asian American candidates of other national origin backgrounds? I engage these questions by examining Asian American candidates in state assembly and congressional general election races in California using precinct-level surname matched vote returns from California’s Statewide Database (SWDB), the state’sofficial redistricting database. California’s top-two primary provides an ideal opportunity to examine Asian American voter behavior. Several studies of immigrant political incorporation have suggested that partisanship will outweigh race and ethnicity in candidate preferences (Cain and Kiewiet 1984; DeSipio 1996; Graves and Lee 2000). Other accounts, however, suggest that ethnicity powerfully influences political outcomes (Wolfinger 1965; Hero 1992; Munoz and Henry 1990; Barreto 2010). Between 2012 and 2016, 46 assembly-level general elections have featured candidates from the same party, or co-partisan elections.2 Using the constraint of the state’s co-partisan elections as an analytic tool, I provide an empirical examination of Asian American voting behavior in general elections featuring at least one Asian American candidate, in which partisanship is no longer a reliable cue. I conduct ecological inference analysis, a Bayesian statistical method for estimating group-level vote choices from aggregate data. Drawing on social identity theory and prior scholarship analyzing the conditions under which Asian American group-based identity can be activated, I theorize that Asian Americans represent a racially polarized voting community. A minority community is said to be racially polarized when they can demonstrate being politically cohesive and voting as bloc to support a preferred candidate (Chen and Lee 2013).3 In all elections observed, I find a majority of Asian Americans rallied behind an Asian American candidate. This finding has important theoretical implications for the question of Asian American pan-ethnicity, as well as pragmatic implications in terms of racially polarized voting and the voting rights of Asian Americans.

Asian Americans in the electorate The effect of co-ethnicity on group behavior has long been established in the political participation literature. In his 1965 study of Italian and Irish immigrant communities in New Haven, Wolfinger articulates a mobilization theory of ethnic voting. He observed strong partisan attachments and support for co-ethnic candidates despite upward econ- omic mobility within the communities, which might otherwise suggest a level of inte- gration or assimilation. Yet, Asian Americans challenge our understanding of co- ethnicity. Who is an Asian American and who is an Asian American co-ethnic candidate? Is a Japanese American a co-ethnic of a Chinese American? Is an Indian American a co- ethnic of a Vietnamese American? The term “Asian American” is uniquely American; developed first by the Census Bureau and later taken on by Asian American activists seeking to build political power (Espiritu 1993; Aoki and Nakanishi 2001; Lai and Geron 2006; Ancheta 2006). The term describes a vast array of individuals in the United States who trace their origins to the Asian continent (Nakanishi 1991) and is applied regardless of being native or foreign-born; of immigration status, naturalization status, or the number of years of residency – all of which have been found to be varying predictors of Asian American political participation (Cain, Kiewiet, and Uhlaner 1991; POLITICS, GROUPS, AND IDENTITIES 3

Ramakrishnan and Espenshade 2001; Lien 2010; Wong et al. 2011). Highly skilled H1(b) visa holders often from East or South Asia are Asian American, just as refugees and asylees from the Vietnam War are Asian American. Thus, an essential question for Asian Americans is the extent to which a racialized identity is salient for group-based political behavior outcomes. Underlying the relationship between a candidate and their co-ethnic community are group-based resources, such as group identity, group consciousness, and linked fate, which scholars have long posited racial and ethnic minorities may rely upon to effectively participate in politics (Verba and Nie 1972; Verba, Nie, and Kim 1987; Leighley 2001). According to the National Asian American Survey, naturalized citizens and native- born Asian Americans are more likely to identify with the “Asian American” racial label (Wong et al. 2011). In an investigation of immigrant generation and voting, Ramak- rishnan and Espenshade (2001) find that unlike European immigrants, voting among Asian Americans increases with each subsequent generation. They theorize that the continued social exclusion faced by second-generation Asian Americans may contribute to increased participation vis-à-vis second-generation whites. This finding is bolstered by a number of socio-political examinations of second-generation Asian Americans that find both a growing sense of pan-ethnic identity and rising interest in politics (Park 2008;Min 2002, 2006; Kibria 2003; Sears et al. 2003; Ramakrishnan 2005). This body of research has been furthered by assessments of group consciousness and linked fate among Asian Americans. In a survey experiment that primes Asian Ameri- cans and African Americans with images of co-ethnic cabinet members as a descriptive representation stimulus, Junn and Masuoka (2008) find Asian Americans primed with these images to exhibit group consciousness near the same level as African Americans who have not been primed. They concluded that Asian American identity is dynamic and malleable and is the product of a “complex interaction between policies of the state, institutions, political economy and the stereotypes that result to create incentives for people categorized by race to either adopt or turn away from a group-based political identity” (734). Scholars have also found that among Asian Americans, the interaction of a racialized identity and a racial context to be predictive of turnout (Kim 2015), the shared experience of social exclusion to be correlated with partisan identity (Kuo, Mal- hotra, and Mo 2017), and expressed fear being associated with political participation (Le, Arora, and Stout 2020). Lu and Jones (2019) found that pan-ethnic linked fate is activated by Asian Americans who have beliefs about discrimination towards their racial group, even when an individual has not personally experienced discrimination and Sadhwani (2020) has found that aggregated, pan-ethnic Asian Americans mobilize for Asian Amer- ican candidates conditional on district demographic context, a pattern that resembles African American and Latinx voter behavior. Thus, despite their linguistic, cultural, and experiential differences, under various contexts and circumstances, an aggregated pan-ethnic group of Asian Americans exhibit certain behavioral similarities in terms of political participation. I contend that Asian American identity is salient at the ballot box. I theorize that when partisanship is no longer a cue, as is the case in a number of elections arising from Cali- fornia’s top-two primary system, Asian pan-ethnic identity is activated and can serve as a short cut or cue for determining vote choice. Moreover, the extant literature finds that Asian American pan-ethnic identity can be activated under certain circumstances and 4 S. SADHWANI contexts. I theorize that co-partisan elections might be such a circumstance or context. Asian American voters’ preference for a co-ethnic candidate can be measurably observed as a pan-ethnic group. Yet, given the vast diversity among Asian Americans, the importance of national origin distinctions remains salient. In the rare occasion of two Asian American candidates from different national origins, I identify polarization and divergence among Asian Americans along national origin lines. While several studies have examined racially polarized voting and co-ethnic mobilization among select national origin subgroups such as Vietnamese Americans (Collet 2005; Uhlaner and Le 2017), this study represents a novel contribution by systematically studying Asian Americans both as a pan-ethnic group and, where appropriate, as national origin subgroups.

Hypotheses This study argues that pan-ethnic Asian American voters rally their support behind Asian American candidates. Using ecological regression, I contend that a majority of Asian American voters will support Asian American candidates. To isolate candidate choice from the constraints of partisanship and incumbency, I analyze open seat elections in which at least one Asian American candidate competes in a general election against a candidate of the same party. Incumbency has long been considered a significant advantage over challengers (Stokes and Miller 1962; Erikson 1971; Gelman and King 1990). Incumbency has been theorized to influence voters by adding to the recognizability of candidates. It also may influence rational voting choices by moving some voters away from their candidate of choice because they assume the candidate’s chances of defeating an incumbent are slim. By focusing only on open seat elections, I remove the powerful influence of incumbency on voters. In addition, I rely on California’s top-two primary system to analyze only those races between candidates of the same party, as party identification powerfully influences a voter’s candidate choice and political behavior. These constraints occur in seven assembly elections since the adoption of the top-two primary system in 2012. Four of these seven competitions were highly competitive elections with the results falling within 2.2 percentage points or less. Given these considerations, I make an initial hypothesis:

H1: A majority of Asian American voters will support Asian American candidates in open seat, co-partisan general elections. Additionally, I theorize that national origin subgroups are a powerful co-ethnic bond that will result in enhanced support for a candidate of the same national-origin group. I examine four elections in districts with large communities of voters from a single national origin group. I define this by at least 10,000 voters identified within the surname-matched data. To probe the distinction between national origin subgroups of Asian Americans, I make a second hypothesis: fi H2: A majority of Asian American voters, identi ed by their national origin, will support co- ethnic candidates of the same national origin. I examine the behavior of Asian American voters when presented the option between two Asian American candidates. I examine three consecutive congressional elections in California’s Silicon Valley, the only Asian majority-minority district in the continental POLITICS, GROUPS, AND IDENTITIES 5

United States. This is the one congressional district in the nation that has seen multiple elections in which two Asian American candidates compete. In 2016, Indian American Democrat Ro Khanna ousted longtime incumbent and the former chair of the Congres- sional Asian Paciﬁc American Caucus, Japanese American Mike Honda, in a co-partisan election. In an overlapping state assembly district, Indian American Ash Kalra also defeated Vietnamese American Madison Nguyen in the same year. I theorize that when Asian Americans of diﬀerent national origin backgrounds compete, the preferences of Asian American voters will observably diverge. Where large voting communities of Chinese Americans, Indian Americans, Vietnamese Americans, and Filipino Americans exist, an assessment of voter preference based on national origin can be conducted, which underscores my third hypothesis:

H3: Asian American voters will diverge in observable national origin majorities in support for candidates. I examine these hypotheses by estimating support for candidates by race and ethnicity in 10 elections in California. The data presented oﬀers a test of these hypotheses for Asian American candidates and voters, but does not provide a test of Latinx voters or candidates by national origin.

Research design and methodology To conduct this analysis, I compiled a database for all California Assembly general election candidates from 2012 through 2018 that captured general election candidate race and ethnicity, partisanship, and incumbency. In addition, I used certiﬁed election outcomes from the Secretary of State to identify the margin of competitiveness for each election. For California’s 80-seat assembly over four election years, this includes data on 320 total elections.4

Data To conduct this analysis, this study uses surname matched voter data available from Cali- fornia’s Statewide Database (SWDB) held by the UC Berkeley School of Law to estimate Asian American vote choice in California state assembly and congressional races. Surname matching is a powerful tool used to predict and identify groups based on race and ethnicity and has been used as a research technique for over 50 years. Surname matching is a commonly used approach for identifying Asian American voters (Go 2016; Collet 2005; Uhlaner and Le 2017). The SWDB uses two surname dic- tionaries compiled by the US Census Bureau and researchers using Social Security records to identify Latinx and Asian American voters (Lauderdale and Kestenbaum 2000; McCue 2011). The SWDB has been used for statewide redistricting purposes, has been featured in peer-reviewed scholarly research,5 and has been used in numerous Voting Rights Act court cases, including one in 2018 that examined vote dilution for Asian Americans in at-large elections for the San Jose County Board of Supervisors. The units of analysis in this study are aggregated precincts within each of seven assembly districts and one congressional district over three elections. This dataset pulls vote returns from all 58 counties in California and standardizes the variables. To conduct the 6 S. SADHWANI estimation, two unique data files for each election were merged. These include (1) the State- ment of Vote, which reports final vote tallies for each candidate from all counties and certified by the Secretary of State and is used to derive the dependent variable, the percentage of the total vote a particular candidate has received in each precinct and (2) the Voters file which reports the final vote with surname matching and is used to derive the independent variable, the percentage of Asian American voters within a precinct.

Case selection Between 2012 and 2018, an Asian American has appeared on the state assembly ballot 58 times. However, to examineAsianAmericanvoterbehaviorthroughthelensof race and not partisanship, I turn to assembly elections that meet three criteria: (1) At least one Asian American candidate; (2) Open seat elections with no incumbent on the ballot, and (3) Co-partisan elections, in which both general election candidates are from the same party. An analysis of such elections provides insights on the extent to which minority voters may use the race or ethnicity of a candidate to inform their vote choice. This situation occurred seven times in California’s state assembly, all featuring general elections between two Democrats. These include three elections in 2012, two in 2014, and two in 2016. In 2012, Rob Bonta (AD-18) was the first Filipino American elected to the state’s legislature to represent the East Bay, having narrowly defeated Abel Guillen, a Latino candidate. In neighboring district 19 representing por- tions of San Francisco, Phil Ting easily defeated Caucasian candidate Michael Breyer, while Jennifer Ong, who would have been the first Filipina elected to the assembly, was narrowly defeated by .6 points by Bill Quirk in district 20. In another highly competitive race in 2014 David Chiu defeated David Campos, while Darrell Fong was easily defeated by African American candidate Jim Cooper in district 9. In 2016, Filipina American and award-winning singer Mae Cendaña Torlakson was easily defeated by Tim Grayson in district 14. 2016 also saw the first assembly match-up between two Asian Americans of differing national origin backgrounds in an open seat, co-partisan election. Indian American Ash Kalra narrowly defeated Vietnamese American Madison Nguyen. In congressional competitions, no elections have yet occurred that feature all three criteria of open seat, co-partisan elections featuring at least one Asian American candidate. Instead, I conduct a comparative analysis to examine three consecutive elections from the nation’s only majority-minority Asian American district between 2012 and 2016. In 2012 Democrat incumbent Mike Honda faced a challenge from Chinese American Republican Evelyn Li. Analysis of this election allows for the comparative observation of the role of partisanship among Asian American voters, the majority of whom favored Honda. In 2014, Honda faced a challenge from within his own party: Indian American Ro Khanna. Khanna was unsuccessful in his midterm election challenge, but returned again in 2016 to ouster Honda and has maintained the seat since. The larger size of a congressional electorate allows for a more robust analysis of candidate preference by national origin, specifically by estimating support for candidates by voters of Indian, Chinese, and Vietnamese national origin. Conducting national origin analysis at the assembly district level is more difficult because the size of the voting communities are smaller and would produce less accurate estimates of candidate vote choice. POLITICS, GROUPS, AND IDENTITIES 7

Notably, all of the elections that meet the criteria of an open-seat, co-partisan general election with at least one Asian American on the ballot occur between Democrats. This is an important limitation of the study, as voter behavior may significantly differ in districts in which two Republican candidates would emerge. While having Republican co-partisan cases to analyze would be helpful, and certainly this is an area in need of future research, the lack of variation in cases does not negate the claim that racial identity is salient at the ballot box. First, the analysis presented assesses the vote preference of all Asian American voters in a district – including Democrats, Republicans, and those registered with third parties or no party preference. Therefore, the analysis is not merely that of voters registered with the Democratic party, but all Asian American voters from varying partisan affiliations. Secondly, research has shown that Asian Americans mobilize for a co- ethnic candidate regardless of party affiliation (Sadhwani 2020). One reason for this could be that nonpartisanship or even party switching is a rational strategy for immigrant voters (Hajnal and Lee 2011), who often report feeling shut out or ignored by the major parties (Wong et al. 2011). Thus, I would expect to find a similar pattern of support for co-ethnic candidates even in districts with two Republicans on the ballot, but this of course is an area in need of additional examination. In addition, the districts profiled here all have sizable proportions of Asian Americans. The final columns of Table 1 identify the proportion of Asian Americans or Latinx in each district, according to estimates from the American Community Survey. Across the seven selected assembly districts, Asian Americans comprise at least 10% of their population and varying proportions of Latinx. The demographic diversity that exists in each district is one of the distinguishing features of studies involving California.

Method of analysis Ecological inference, a Bayesian statistical method of inferring individual behavior from aggregate data, is used to estimate support for a candidate by race and ethnicity of voters.

Table 1. Co-partisan elections in Open Seat Districts with at least one Asian American candidate. Competitive % Asian % Latinx Year District Counties in District Candidates Margin in District in District 2012 18 Alameda Rob Bonta 1.0 22.3 27.5 Abel Guillen 2012 19 San Francisco/San Phil Ting 16.8 44.9 14.1 Mateo Michael Breyer 2012 20 Alameda Bill Quirk .6 35.5 28.7 Jennifer Ong 2014 9 Contra Costa/ Jim Cooper 11 11.4 28 San Francisco/Solano Darrell Fong 2014 17 San Francisco David Chiu 2.2 29.1 18.9 David Campos 2016 14 Contra Costa/Solano Tim Grayson 23.0 14.9 27.3 Mae Cendaña Torlakson 2016 27 Santa Clara Ash Kalra 6.4 24.8 45 Madison Nguyen 2014 17 Alameda Honda* 3.6 56.3 15.9 Congress Santa Clara Khanna 2016 17 Alameda Honda* 22 56.3 15.9 Congress Santa Clara Khanna 8 S. SADHWANI

Because the United States operates under a secret ballot system, we have no way of knowing for certain how individuals vote. Surveys and exit polls sufficiently capture results in national or statewide elections, but rarely capture enough localized data to be informative in local elections and often are not adequately representative of minority communities (Arvizu and Garcia 1996; Tate 1991; Lien 2004). While some have critiqued the use of inferring individual behavior from aggregate data, pointing to the possibility that such analysis can result in ecological fallacies (Robinson 2009; Ferree 2004; Herron and Shotts 2003), ecological regression has been the hallmark method of analysis of voting rights court cases for more than five decades to identify levels of racially polarized voting and vote dilution among minority communities (Grofman 1991, 1992). This study employs the R package eiCompare, which uses three different inferential tests (Goodman, King EI, and Rosen’s R × C) to compare and verify the analysis (Collingwood et al. 2016). In elections in which more than two racial groups are analyzed, estimates from Rosen’s R × C method are reported (Rosen et al. 2001). In districts in which at least 10,000 voters can be identified by their national origin, bivariate ecological inference (King 1997;Cho1998; Kousser 2001) is reported. These include Chinese American voters in district 19 in 2012 and district 17 in 2014; Vietnamese Americans in district 27 in 2016; and Chinese, Indian, and Vietnamese voters in the 17th congressional district in 2012 and 2016. For a more comprehensive discussion on ecological inference, the various methodological approaches used in the eiCompare package as well as diagnostics of the data set, please see Appendix 3.

Results The results of the ecological inference estimations for support of candidates by race and ethnicity are presented in Tables 2 and 3. They show that under the constraint of a partisan election in which candidates from the same party compete, a majority of Asian Americans rally behind an Asian American candidate in all elections observed. The results further show that Asian Americans diverge as a pan-ethnic group in comparison from Latinx or other voters, thus providing support for the ﬁrst hypothesis. Asian American candidates won four of the seven co-partisan, open seat assembly elections in the analysis. In instances in which national-origin preferences can be estimated, such as Chinese Americans in the election of Phil Ting (district 19) and David Chiu (district 17) and Vietnamese Americans in the competition between Ash Kalra and Madison Nguyen (district 27), enhanced levels of national origin cohesion and support for co-ethnic candidates can be observed among national origin groups. Finally, examination of California’s 17th congressional district allows for the observation of divergence between national origin groups when oﬀered two Asian American candidates. While Chinese and Indian American voters rally behind Khanna in 2016, Vietnamese American and Latinx voters coalesce around Honda, thus providing support for the third hypothesis.

Pan-ethnic Asian American voters The estimates in the 2014 competition in district 17 between Chinese American David Chiu and Latino David Campos are emblematic of a racialized break down in the Table 2. Support for Asian American Assembly Candidates in Open Seat & Partisan Elections by Race or Ethnicity, 2012–2016. Year District Competitive Margin Candidates Asian American Latinx Other Chinese Vietnamese Indian 2012 18 1.0 Rob Bonta 63.72 (4.10) 46.99 (4.14) 49.09 (1.01) Abel Guillen 36.38 (4.15) 52.93 (4.14) 50.89 (1.02) 2012 19 16.8 Phil Ting 78.76 (1.95) 56.77 (2.41) 52.44 (0.63) 81.68 (4.08) Michael Breyer 21.27 (1.98) 43.25 (2.45) 47.55 (0.63) 18.09 (3.1) 2012 20 .6 Bill Quirk 37.35 (4.37) 55.76 (4.09) 50.62 (1.41) Jennifer Ong 62.49 (4.35) 44.23 (4.12) 49.41 (1.43) 2014 9 11 Jim Cooper 40.86 (8.75) 80.36 (8.48) 53.84 (2.01) Darrell Fong 59.02 (8.69) 19.72 (8.51) 46.13 (2.00) 2014 17 2.2 David Chiu 90.46 (2.81) 1.37 (1.31) 49.26 (0.7) 93.46 (2.59) David Campos 9.51 (2.77) 98.64 (1.31) 50.74 (0.69) 6.73 (2.69) 2016 14 23.0 Tim Grayson 44.64 (15.86) 55.82 (5.07) 64.59 (1.51) Mae Cendaña Torlakson 55.59 (15.64) 44.07 (5.05) 35.42 (1.51) 2016 27 6.4 Ash Kalra 48.55 (1.75) 55.53 (1.43) 53.11 (0.89) 41.72 (1.03) Madison Nguyen 51.48 (1.76) 44.44 (1.45) 46.89 (0.90) 57.71 (1.37)

– Table 3. Support for Asian American Candidates by Race or Ethnicity in Congressional District 17, 2012 2016. IDENTITIES AND GROUPS, POLITICS, Year District Competitive Margin Candidates Asian American Latinx Other Chinese Vietnamese Indian 2012 17 47 Honda* (D) 68.83 (2.66) 98.16 (1.62) 67.82 (1.44) 60.26 (6.15) 67.75 (6.04) 81.79 (9.98) Li (R) 31.13 (2.62) 1.82 (1.62) 32.19 (1.43) 39.80 (6.2) 32.31 (6.1) 18.27 (10.04) 2014 17 3.6 Honda* 50.16 (2.01) 98.56 (1.32) 42.96 (1.11) Khanna 49.82 (1.99) 1.44 (1.33) 57.04 (1.12) 2016 17 22 Honda* 38.63 (1.9) 67.25 (2.93) 33.64 (1.29) 18.84 (4.13) 70.41 (5.14) 10.19 (5.45) Khanna 61.35 (1.87) 32.75 (2.90) 66.22 (1.27) 81.20 (4.17) 29.63 (5.19) 89.82 (5.5) * Indicates candidate was an incumbent; Assembly candidates in the top position of the cell won the election. Notes: (1) Standard errors in parentheses. (2) Data publicly available from UC Berkeley School of Law’s Statewide Database (3) Method: Asian American, Latinx and Other categories were estimated using Rosen et al.’s Ecological Inference Rows by Columns Method using eiCompare R package. National origin categories are calculated using King’s 2 × 2 solution to ecological inference (5) All co-partisan general elections with at least one Asian American on the ballot occurring in California’s assembly have been between Democrats. All candidates listed are members of the Democratic Party with the exception of candidate for congressional district 17 in 2012, Evelyn Li. (6) Competitive margin calculated as the percent of the vote received by the winning candidate minus the percent of the vote of the losing candidate. 9 10 S. SADHWANI vote. An estimated 90% of Asian American voters supported Chiu while 98% of Latinx voters supported Campos. Other voters, including non-Hispanic whites, African Amer- icans, Native Americans, and others not identiﬁable in the surname match process, were evenly split between the two candidates. The number of actual Asian American voters (21,790) in the election surpassed the number of Latinx (15,177) by about six thousand. While the majority of Asian American voters in the seventeenth assembly district are Chinese American, at least one thousand Indian, Vietnamese, Japanese, and Korean American voters and more than two thousand Filipino voters also participated in the 2014 election. Figure 1 plots the percent of the precinct vote for David Chiu by the percent of Asian and Latinx voters in each precinct. The graph provides a visual interpretation that as the number of Asian American voters increases in a precinct, support for the Asian candidate also increases. The reverse relationship is found with Latinx voters in this election: as the number of Latinx voters in a precinct increases, support for Chiu declines. The results provide substantiation of the hypothesis that Asian American voters, from various national origin subgroups, support the Asian American candidate. The ﬁnding raises important questions about the role of minority turnout and the proportion of minority voters in a district. Hajnal and Trounstine (2005) have argued that lower turnout in non-national elections can lead to substantial reductions in the representation of minorities. If the open seat had occurred in a presidential year could higher Latinx turnout have led to a Campos win or is the district more heavily Asian? Was Asian or Latinx turnout mobilized by the presence of an Asian American and

Figure 1. Scatterplot of precinct votes for David Chiu by Percent of Asian American voters in precinct and ﬁtted regression line. POLITICS, GROUPS, AND IDENTITIES 11

Latino candidate? While ecological inference is informative about how those who turned out behaved, it is not well suited to examine turnout. Comparative analysis of the descriptive statistics of elections can provide useful insights into the composition of the district electorate and signal variation in turnout between presidential and midterm election years. In fact, both Asian (40,869) and Latinx (31,165) turnout in the district was nearly double in 2016. In a similarly competitive match up in 2012, Filipino American Rob Bonta inched out Latino Abel Guillen by a margin of 1%. Newspaper articles chronicling the competition suggested a highly racialized environment, with Bonta securing the endorsements of various Asian American legislators, while notable Latinx legislators endorsed Guillen.6 The majority of Asian American voters (63%) supported Bonta, providing additional support for my first hypothesis. Like the Chiu-Campos race, other voters were evenly split. The estimates for Latinx voters, however, suggest support for the Latino candidate received a more limited amount of co-ethnic support (52.9%) than in the Chiu-Campos race. We can speculate a number of possible reasons for this lower level of Latinx support for Guillen. For example, broader name recognition for Bonta could contribute to greater support (Abramowitz 1975). Bonta was the Vice Mayor of the city of Alameda and may have had the privilege of additional name recognition and familiarity with voters than Guillen, who at the time served as a trustee of the Peralta Community College. Bonta, who if elected, would be the first Filipino American elected to the California Assembly, and may have received additional support or turnout as an historic first for the community (Simien 2015) given the two candidates from the same party shared a similar stance on many substantive policy issues. Bonta may have also won over Latinx voters with his working class, immigrant personal background. His biography recounts his birth in the Philippines, followed by his adolescence with his parents who were farm workers and civil rights activists, and having lived “in a trailer just hundreds of yards from César Chávez’s home.”7 It is also possible that Bonta, a somewhat more moderate candidate, in comparison to Guillen’s closeness with the left-wing Occupy Wall Street movement,8 may have garnered the support of Republicans and undeclared voters in the district who, combined, accounted for 27% (56,795) of actual voters. Finally, an alternative expla- nation for the lower Latinx support for Guillen in comparison to Campos may be the misidentification of Latinx and Filipino voters using surname matching. The Philippines was under Spanish colonial rule for more than four hundred years, resulting in many similar surnames as individuals from Latin America. While surname matching is a powerful tool to help identify the race and ethnicity of individuals, being especially used in the health care industry, the mischaracterization of Filipinos as Latinxs and vice versa has been widely documented (Pérez-Stable et al. 1995; Fiscella and Fremont 2006; McCue 2011). A possible scenario is that a number of Filipino voters in the district are being identified as Latinx. To extrapolate from the findings from the Campos-Chiu election, Latinxs were likely supporting Guillen at a rate higher than 52%, while Filipinos – many being identified as Latinx through surname matching – were likely supporting Bonta, thus driving down the Latinx estimation for Guillen and muting the Asian Amer- ican support for Bonta. In another hotly contested race, Caucasian American Bill Quirk narrowly defeated Jennifer Ong in district 20. Ecological inference analysis provides additional support for the first hypothesis: 62% of Asian American voters favored Ong over Quirk, while 12 S. SADHWANI other voters are fairly evenly split (50.6–49.4%), suggesting that a majority of Asian American voters rallied behind Filipina Democrat Jennifer Ong over Quirk, also a Demo- crat. Like Bonta, this may be a conservative estimate of Asian American support if Fili- pinos in the district were misidentified in the surname-matching process. Surname matching identified 6332 Filipino American voters in the election with the total number of Asian American and Latinx voters roughly split: Latinx voters comprised 15% of the 2012 electorate while Asian Americans accounted for 12%. The results also find that a majority of Latinx voters favored Quirk (55.7%). Examining the results from these highly competitive races where candidates both have a viable chance of winning the election allows us to uncover the influence of a racialized group acting together. In three less competitive elections, we can still observe a majority of Asian American voters support for Asian American candidates. However, in less competitive elections the viability of a candidate may influence a voter’s decision-making process at the ballot box (Abramowitz 1989). Can co-ethnic support help secure a victory for a candidate? In 2012, Chinese Amer- ican Phil Ting easily defeated Caucasian American Michael Breyer in the 18th district with support from nearly 80% of Asian American voters. This competition allows for the observation of the influence of the Asian American vote, as support for Ting from Latinx and other voters was far more modest (56% and 52%, respectively). These estimates suggest that without the strong support of the pan-Asian American community, Ting may have faced a far more competitive race. In 2014, African American Jim Cooper defeated Chinese American Darrell Fong by a margin of 11 points in assembly district 9. Cooper secured 80% of the Latinx vote while support from other voters was more muted at 53%. Additional aggregation of the “other category” could be informative to better visualize divergence between Caucasian and African American voters. Finally, in 2016, Filipina singer Mae Cendaña Torlakson was unable to defeat Caucasian Amer- ican Tim Grayson, who defeated her by a margin of twenty-three points. Nevertheless, Cendaña Torlakson garnered the majority of the Asian American vote, while we can observe a clear preference for Grayson among Latinx and other voters. In all three elections, the Asian American candidate garnered the majority of support from pan-Asian voters, who observably diverge as a voting bloc from Latinx and other voters. Whether the Asian American candidate can secure a victory may simply depend on the size of the Asian American electorate within the district. In district 18, with 23% of Asian Amer- icans casting a ballot in 2012, Ting easily secured a victory. In districts 9 and 14, where Asian Americans comprised only 14% and 8% of the electorates in the given years, the Asian American candidates were less successful.

National origin voters The second hypothesis rests on the theory that the national origin identities of voters will influence their choice in candidate. I conduct ecological inference analysis in those districts with at least 10,000 voters identified by national origin. I find strong evidence of the hypothesis that voters will support co-ethnic candidates of the same national origin. More than 80% of Chinese Americans in district 18 lent their support to Chinese Amer- ican candidate Phil Ting in 2012, while an estimated 93% supported David Chiu in 2014 in district 17. A similarly high level of support can be found in the 2016 congressional POLITICS, GROUPS, AND IDENTITIES 13 race, in which nearly 90% of Indian American voters supported the Indian American candidate, Ro Khanna. In assembly district 27 Vietnamese American candidate Madison Nguyen also received a majority of support for Vietnamese American voters, although not at the same impressively high levels. The more modest support from the Vietnamese community should come as no surprise. In 2009, some within the Vietna- mese community attempted to recall Nguyen from her seat on the San Jose City Council after a bitter dispute over naming a shopping center “Little Saigon Business Dis- trict,” which Nguyen had opposed.9 The majority support for co-ethnic candidates sub- stantiates my claim that co-ethnicity within the Asian American community at the national origin level serves as a guide to voters.

Divergence among Asian American voters The third hypothesis anticipates that when Asian Americans compete, divergence would be found at the national origin level. In the 27th assembly district race in 2016, Asian Americans appear to be evenly split between Indian American Ash Kalra, who garnered 48.5% of the Asian American vote and Madison Nguyen with 51.5%. While Nguyen had a slight lead over Kalra amongst Asian Americans, Kalra appeared to do better amongst Latinxs (55.5%) and other voters (53%). The even split among Asian American voters raises questions about the extent to which voters diverged in their candidate preference based on national origin. As previously mentioned, a majority of Vietnamese American voters – who comprised 11% of the district’s actual voters in 2016 – supported Nguyen. Unfortunately, Indian Americans comprised only 2.8% of the total electorate (5425 voters), too small of a sample to be analyzed with ecological inference. Analyzing at the larger congressional district level, however, provides additional opportunity to assess the third hypothesis. In California’s 17th congressional district, Asian Americans account for 52.9% of the district’s total population, according to the American Community Survey’s 2015 estimates. The number of Chinese voters (34,055) alone in 2016 was nearly equivalent to the number of Latinx voters (34,538) in the district. The number of decline to state voters among Asian American voters in the district is high, with more Asian Americans with no party preference turning out than either registered Democrats or Republicans in 2016. The ecological inference estimates, paint a picture of how Honda, a long-time incumbent, garnered a coalition of support in 2012 that included a majority of Asian Americans. In the midterm elections of 2014, those Asian American voters who turned out were divided half supporting the incumbent and half supporting his Demo- cratic challenger, Ro Khanna. The 2016 estimates suggest that observable divergence among Asian American voters at the national origin level contributed to Honda’s defeat. In 2012, Honda won reelection easily against Chinese-American Republican challenger Evelyn Li. The district, which voted strongly in favor of Obama, lent its support to incumbent Democrat Honda. With two Democrats on the general election ballot in 2014, both of Asian-American heritage, voters were offered a different set of options. The estimations suggest that Honda’s win in 2014 was heavily reliant upon Latinx support, while Asian Americans and voters of other races and ethnicities began to shift their support toward Khanna. Two years later, Honda continued to receive strong support from Latinx voters in the district, but a coalition of Asian American 14 S. SADHWANI and other voters moved heavily toward Khanna, propelled by a larger presidential year turnout. Disaggregation of Asian-American voters by country of origin finds that Chinese Americans and Indian Americans voted heavily in favor of Khanna in 2016. An estimated 81% of Chinese American voters and 90% of Indian American voters in the district lent their support to Khanna in 2016, while Honda garnered an estimated 70.41% of Vietnamese Americans’ support. Unfortunately, while ecological inference estimates can help uncover divergence among national origin subgroups, it cannot provide insights about why Indian and Chinese American voters shifted their support to Khanna while Vietnamese Americans maintained their allegiance to Honda. One contributing factor could be an ongoing House Ethics investigation that accused Honda of allowing congressional staff to impro- perly mix official and campaign business. The probe cost him the endorsements promi- nent Democrats such as Barack Obama and vice presidential candidate Tim Kaine.10 Additionally, the Honda campaign ran negative ads accused of evoking prejudice of Indian Americans.11 A group of Silicon Valley Indian Americans responded to the ad with an open letter criticizing Honda for a lack of tolerance and acceptance.12 The senti- ment may have had a spillover effect to Chinese Americans in the district, many of whom also work in Silicon Valley. Khanna’s campaign received significant support from tech moguls like Google CEO Sundar Pichai and Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg.13 Honda, a Japanese American who was sent to an internment camp as a young boy during World War II, may have maintained the support of Vietnamese and Latinx voters in the district with his advocacy for immigration reform, refugees, and victims of human trafficking.14 In addition, Latinx and Vietnamese Americans could represent preferences based on socioeconomic status. \While the 17th congressional district in California is a majority-minority district of Asian Americans, the findings presented here demonstrate that subgroups of Asian Americans based on country of origin exhibit political cohesion in divergent direc- tions at the ballot box. Although this analysis cannot show the exact reason for why voters moved away from Honda while others maintained their support, the findings can clearly show that while Chinese and Indian American voters formed a politically cohesive coalition of support for Khanna, Vietnamese Americans, and Latinx voters coalesced around Honda. The finding illustrates that while in some contexts where only one Asian American candidate is available, Asian American voters may coalesce around such a candidate regardless of their national origin background. Yet, when presented with two Asian American candidates both of the same party, the Asian-American community reveal variations in their voter preferences. In other words, Asian American voters can simultaneously exhibit both political cohesion and political division under varying electoral contexts. Just as surveys and survey experiments have found Asian American identity to be “complex” and “dynamic,” (Junn and Masuoka 2008), so too are the preferences of Asian American voters.

Justifications for co-ethnic support The results presented in Tables 2 and 3 suggest there is variation in levels of support for co-ethnic candidates among Asian American voters across districts. A secondary analysis POLITICS, GROUPS, AND IDENTITIES 15 was conducted to further assess why we should expect Asian American voters to support Asian American candidates and why variation in levels of support might exist. Socioeconomic resources such as income and education have long been considered a driving force behind voter participation (Wolfinger and Rosenstone 1980; Brady, Verba, and Schlozman 1995). Yet several studies have shown that despite these resources, eligible Asian Americans register to vote and participate at disproportionately lower rates than other groups (Uhlaner, Cain, and Kiewiet 1989; Lien 2001; Wong et al. 2011). While this study examines vote choice for a co-ethnic candidate, other studies of minority voter behavior that measure voter turnout find the demographic composition of a district meaningfully influences turnout for a co-ethnic (Fraga 2016; Sadhwani 2020). Where minority communities are more densely populated, communities can feel that their vote may be more decisive in the outcome of an election and localized resources such as community-based organizations or ethnic religious institutions can provide vital information about elections that stimulates both support for ethnic candidates and mobilization (Ramirez 2013; Leighley 2001; Barreto 2010). To further assess the influence of jurisdictional context and socioeconomics on support for Asian candidates, a multivariate regression analysis was conducted where the dependent variable is the percentage of the district vote share received by an Asian American candidate. All 80 assembly districts were included in the analysis over four election years from 2012 to 2018. Included in the analysis are measures for the percentage of Asian Americans, African Americans, Latinx, and Caucasians in the district, derived from the American Community Survey of the Census Bureau. Also included in the analysis are variables for education measured by the percentage of the district who hold either high school degrees or bachelor’s degrees and median income in thousands and a control for the partisanship of the candidate. The results displayed in Table 4 find that the percentage of Asian Americans in a district is positively associated with the percentage vote share received by an Asian Amer- ican candidate, while socioeconomic factors such as education and median earnings are

Table 4. The eﬀect of district demographics on candidate vote share. Candidate Vote Share, California Assembly General Elections 2012–2018 Asian American Candidate’s Vote share % Asian 0.711*** (0.07) % Latino −0.139* (0.03) % Black 0.112 (0.33) % White 0.008 (0.03) % High school 0.001 (0.003) % Bachelor’s Degree −0.002 (0.003) Median Earnings (thousands) −0.001 (0.001) Constant 0.082 (0.15) Observations 640 Note: Ordinary least squares regression. Standard errors in parentheses. *p < 0.05, ***p < 0.001. 16 S. SADHWANI not. In this paper, I have argued that Asian American identity is salient at the ballot box and that Asian American voters will support Asian American candidates. This secondary analysis provides additional evidence of this claim, by ruling out socioeconomic factors as determinants of support for Asian candidates.

Discussion The kinds of elections analyzed in this paper represent rare occurrences: Only in Califor- nia will you ﬁnd two Asian Americans of diﬀerent national origins but the same party competing in a general election. Yet, observing the places of convergence and divergence within the Asian American community – a heterogeneous, complex, and fast-growing community – can lead to wider analysis and applications. For example, can the data presented from California be an insight into the voting preferences of emerging communities of Asian Americans nationwide? Does the data presented here represent evidence of racially polarized voting or vote dilution of the Asian American community that may have implications for those interested in Section 2 claims of the Voting Rights Act? Finally, what other micro-analysis does this kind of aggregate study omit? In this section, I explore these questions and consider the broader implications of the data that has been presented.

Descriptive representatives The question of what it means to represent and what it means to be represented is a hallmark of debate within democratic theory. In her classic meditation on representation, Pitkin (1967) describes descriptive representation as when a representative resembles or shares certain characteristics with the represented. The diversity and heterogeneity of Asian Americans represent a challenge to this idea. The data presented here observes the voting preferences of Asian American voters both as a pan-ethnic group and as national origin groups. While these findings give no definitive conclusion to why voters vote as a racialized or national origin group, they can be considered within existing theories of representation and political behavior. We can view the coalescing of pan- ethnic Asian Americans around an Asian American candidate as a struggle for descriptive representation and power within the political system. That pan-ethnic Asian Amer- icans rally behind a candidate may suggest that an Asian American of any national origin background could satisfy the community’s descriptive demands (see, for example, Mans- bridge 1999, 2011; Dovi 2002). Alternatively, the observance of cohesion at the national origin level may moderate the predominance of pan-ethnic appeals. While pan-ethnic identities are growing among Asian Americans and provide appeal across sub-national groups, co-ethnicity at the level of national origin remains a prevalent bond. This raises questions about how well an Asian American of any descent may be a descriptive representative for a different subnational community. For example, is Indian American Ro Khanna a descriptive representative to the Chinese community who supported him? Is he a descriptive representative to the Vietnamese community who did not support him? As other literature has suggested, he might simply be a rational actor who, knowing he needs to garner support at the ballot box, works to provide substantive representation to the Chinese and Vietnamese communities within his district. Such a POLITICS, GROUPS, AND IDENTITIES 17 relationship has been considered of white legislators representing districts with large African American electorates (Grose 2011). If the latter, then is Ro Khanna’s relationship with the Chinese and Vietnamese American communities in his district any different than his relationship with the Latinx community? Beyond California, legislators and congressional candidates in districts with growing Asian American electorates have begun to court Asian American voters in notable swing states and districts. In Georgia’s sixth congressional district, a highly educated and affluent suburb of Atlanta, Asian Americans became a key constituency during a 2017 special election to replace Rep. Tom Price, who left his seat to join the Trump adminis- tration. Previously considered a Republican stronghold district, Democratic candidate Jon Ossoff made a strong bid for the seat drawing national attention and enormous campaign contributions from outside of the state. Outreach to the burgeoning Asian Amer- ican community of John’s Creek was central to both candidates’ strategies.15 Both candidates hired Asian American outreach staff to conduct phone banks in Asian languages, participated in Asian American heritage events and ran Korean-language radio advertisements. Similar stories of candidates and elected official courting Asian American voters can be found in Hendersen, Nevada; Minneapolis, Minnesota; Fairfax County Virginia; Northern New Jersey and Houston, Texas. This could be a signal that although the candidates are not a part of the Asian American communities, they are prepared to be responsive to the substantive needs of the community. From the data presented here, we can observe Asian Americans voting as a cohesive bloc in many instances, potentially a sign that Asian American pan-ethnicity is on the rise. However, there are also observable points of divergence along national origin lines, a finding that should be of importance to candidates and legislators in districts with burgeoning Asian American communities.

Cohesive voting bloc The rejection of minority candidates, particularly in districts with large numbers of co- ethnic voters, raises questions about whether votes cast by citizens with distinct political interests may be ‘diluted’ in such a way that their candidate of choice has little to no chance of success. Claims of vote dilution speak to the maxim of democratic inclusion of minorities, which is the heart of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. Asian Americans represent an emergent case within the study of vote dilution – a community that has long been identified as facing barriers to voting (Wong 2005; Lien, Conway, and Wong 2004), but whose relatively small size and heterogeneity did not previously warrant examinations of vote cohesion. The findings presented here could potentially be examined from a Voting Rights Act lens. For example, could Jennifer Ong’s loss to Bill Quirk in assembly district 20 in 2012 constitute an example of Asian American racially polarized voting? At the national origin level, is the power of Vietnamese voters in San Jose being diluted? One could potentially look at their support for Madison Nguyen in the assembly election and Honda in the congressional election to argue that the Vietnamese community is unable to elect their candidate of choice. The Supreme Court’s 1986 decision in Thornburg v. Gingles understood voting to be polarized when “(1) the political preferences of majority-race and minority-race voters diverge substantially and (2) the racial majority votes with enough cohesion to usually 18 S. SADHWANI defeat the minority’s candidates of choice” (Elmendorf, Quinn, and Abrajano 2016, 589). Asian Americans have not often been considered in this context, but the findings of this study suggest that perhaps they should. That the candidate of choice for Asian American voters is unable to be elected could constitute vote dilution in a strict interpretation of Section 2 that may require remedy such as the creation of Asian American majority-minority districts. Indeed, a similar case was recently considered in the neighboring city of Santa Clara, where Asian American residents filed a lawsuit claiming the at-large city council elections dilute their vote under the California Voting Rights Act. An Asian American candidate has never won a council seat, despite Asian American voters making up 30% of the eligible voter base.16 At its 1965 inception, the federal VRA had the clear purpose of increasing the voice and power of African American voters. The 1975 Congressional amendment to the VRA expanded protections to linguistic minorities including Latinx, Native Americans, and Asian Americans. But twenty-first- century redistricting decisions are no longer simply a Black and White affair, particularly in urban areas with diverse populations. That Asian Americans constitute a racially polarized group could be an important assessment but must be considered in light of districts comprised of multiple minority groups or what scholars have called “coalition” districts (Barreto, Grose and Henderson 2011). Moreover, the increasing diversity and incorporation of Asian Americans into the political landscape raises important questions about how different minorities might compete for representation. While answering these questions is beyond the scope of the present study, the findings presented here are fodder for additional research and theorizing about the future of minority representation in the United States and the kinds of institutional structures that may help or hinder the ability of various minority communities to be represented.

Conclusion This article asked: Do voters use the race or ethnicity of a candidate in selecting whom to support? Drawing upon California’s top-two primary electoral system, which results in a number of co-partisan general election competitions, I analyze the support for Asian American candidates by race and ethnicity of voters when the cue of partisanship is no longer reliable. Using ecological inference estimates, I find that Asian American voters rally behind Asian American candidates and that support levels are enhanced between national-origin co-ethnic candidates and voters, providing support for the claim that racial identity may be a driving mechanism for Asian American voters. I have argued that this racialized divergence between Asian American voters in their selection of candidates, may suggest that racial identities are salient and influential for voters. While significant research has examined widespread trends in political beliefs and beha- viors through the use of survey data, this study presents a novel approach by analyzing Asian American behavior through the use of surname matched vote returns. While the findings presented here represent an advancement in our understanding of Asian American voter behavior, the study of vote returns presents a number of limit- ations that warrant additional research. First, the focus of this study has been the ethnicity of Asian Americans, yet Latinx voters also have different national origin backgrounds which could be important to voter behavior (Beltran 2010), but that are not examined here. Second, the research design criteria resulted in the analysis of only co-partisan POLITICS, GROUPS, AND IDENTITIES 19 general elections between Democratic candidates. Future analysis should include the examination of Republican candidates, if and when such an instance occurs. Finally, while ecological inference can estimate the support received by a candidate from differing groups, it cannot fully explain why groups cast their support behind a particular candidate. What can be observed, however, is that across all of the elections analyzed, the majority of Asian American voters support Asian American candidates and according to the secondary analysis conducted, the results are not confounded by socioeconomic status indicators. Nevertheless, these shortcomings represent areas ripe for additional research.

Notes 1. David Campos is of Guatemalan ancestry. This study examines national origin of Asian Americans, but Latinx voter behavior could also be studied by national origin differences. 2. For a list of the 46 elections, see Appendix 1. 3. Racially polarized voting is a legal standard derived from the Supreme Court’s decision in Thornburg v. Gingles (1986), which identifies the circumstances or “preconditions” under which a minority community’s vote has been diluted, and district boundaries must be redrawn. 4. 2012 was the inaugural year of three electoral design reforms in California: (1) the switch to the top-two primary; (2) the creation of new district lines following the 2011 redistricting, conducted for the first time by a citizen review board; (3) the adoption of addition term limits for state legislators (Highton, Huckfeldt, and Hale 2016; Sadhwani and Mendez 2018). To assess candidate racial identity a number of methods were used consistent with prior studies such as membership in racial or ethnic caucuses, place of birth, self-made state- ments about racial and ethnic background either in biographies or media publications and endorsements by ethnic organizations (Fraga 2016). In 2016, the California Research Bureau, in conjunction with the California State Library, issued the report Demographics in the California Legislature, which identifies the self-reported race and gender of current state legislators. This report was used to crosscheck racial and ethnic designations. 5. For example, see Henderson, Sekhon, and Titiunik (2016) publication entitled “Cause or Effect? Turnout in Hispanic Majority-Minority Districts.” in Political Analysis. 6. Tavares, Steven. “Two Candidates in 18th Assembly District Rush to Bolster their Base.” The East Bay Citizen. February 17, 2012. 7. See Assemblymember Rob Bonta’s biography, available at https://a18.asmdc.org/biography 8. Duckworth, Anna. “East Bay College District to Divest from Big Banks.” CBS San Francisco Bay Area. November 19, 2011. 9. Theriault, Denis. "San Jose Councilwoman Madison Nguyen survives bitter recall attempt." The Mercury Sun. March 3, 2009. 10. Marinucci, Carla. “Honda downplays House Ethics investigation.” Politico. September 22, 2016. 11. Herhold, Scott. “Mike Honda’s New Ad Diminishes Him.” The Mercury News. October 4, 2016. 12. “Open Letter to Congressman Mike Honda on ‘Racially Coded’ TV Ad.” India West. October 14, 2016. 13. Ferenstein, Gregory. “Congressional Candidate Ro Khanna Supports Some of Silicon Valley ’s Most Ambitious Policy Ideas.” Forbes. September 22, 2016. 14. Honda, Mike. “In Support of Comprehensive Immigration Reform.” Reform Immigration for America. 15. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/georgia-special-election-shines-light-asian- american-voters-n771996 20 S. SADHWANI

16. Emily Deruy. “Santa Clara’s voting system attacked in court as discriminatory.” Mercury News. (Location, CA) April 23, 2018. Available here. 17. For a good example of the use of these methods for Asian Americans see Ladonna Yumori Kaku et al vs. City of Santa Clara decided on May 15, 2018. In this case, the judge found a “preponderance of evidence” of Asian American vote dilution in the at-large city council election system. His decision relied upon EI and R × C estimations and statistical testimony of Caltech Professor J. Morgan Kousser.

Disclosure statement No potential conﬂict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Funding This work was supported by John Randolph and Dora Haynes Foundation.

ORCID Sara Sadhwani http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9086-458X

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Appendices Appendix 1. List of all Co-Partisan Elections in California 2012–2016 Table A1. Democratic Assembly Co-Partisan General Elections. Year District Candidate 1 Candidate 2 2012 2 Wesley Chesbro Tom Lynch 10 Michael Allen Marc Levine 18 Rob Bonta Abel Guillen 19 Phil Ting Michael Breyer 20 Bill Quirk Jennifer Ong 39 Raul Bocanegra Richard Alarcon 47 Joe Baca Jr. Cheryl Brown 50 Richard Bloom Betsy Butler 51 Jimmy Gomez Luis Lopez 59 Reggie Jones-Sawyer Rodney Robinson 62 Mervin Evans Steven Bradford 2014 7 Steve Cohn Kevin McCarty 9 Jim Cooper Darrell Fong 15 Elizabeth Echols Tony Thurmond 17 David Campos David Chiu 39 Raul Bocanegra Patty Lopez 47 Cheryl Brown Gil Navarro 53 Sandra Mendoza Miguel Santiago 64 Mike Gipson Prophet La’Omar Walker 2016 10 Marc Levine Veronica Roni Jacobi 14 Tim Grayson Mae Dendana Torlakson 24 Vicki Veenker Marc Berman 27 Madison Nguyen Ash Kalra 30 Karina Cervantez Alejo Anna Caballero 39 Raul Bocanegra Patty Lopez 43 Laura Friedman Ardy Kassakhian 46 Adrin Nazarian Angela Rupert 47 Cheryl Brown Eloise Reyes 52 Freddie Rodgriguez Paul Vincent Avila 53 Sandra Mendoza Miguel Santiago Table A2. Republican Assembly Co-Partisan General Elections. Year District Candidate 1 Candidate 2 2012 1 Brian Dahle Rick Bosetti 5 Frank Begelow Rico Oller 6 Beth Gaines Andy Pugno 23 Bob Whalen Jim Patterson 67 Phil Paule Melissa Mendoza 72 Troy Edgar Travis Allen 76 Sherry Hodges Rocky Chavez 2014 26 Devon Mathis Rudy Mendoza 71 Brian Jones Tony Teora 74 Keith Curry Matthew Harper 76 Rocky Chavez Thomas Krouse 2016 12 Ken Vogel Heath Flora 23 Jim Patterson Gwen Morris 71 Randy Voepel Leo Hamel POLITICS, GROUPS, AND IDENTITIES 25

Appendix 2. Goodman regression plots of percentage of a vote for a candidate by percent of Asian candidates

1.) Scatterplot of precinct votes with ﬁtted regression line for Asian American voters in Assembly District 18, 2012 General Election 26 S. SADHWANI

2.) Scatterplot of precinct votes with ﬁtted regression line for Asian American voters in Assembly District 19, 2012 General Election POLITICS, GROUPS, AND IDENTITIES 27

3.) Scatterplot of precinct votes with ﬁtted regression line for Asian American voters in Assembly District 20, 2012 General Election 28 S. SADHWANI

4.) Scatterplot of precinct votes with ﬁtted regression line for Asian American voters in Assembly District 9, 2014 General Election POLITICS, GROUPS, AND IDENTITIES 29

5.) Scatterplot of precinct votes with ﬁtted regression line for Asian American voters in Assembly District 17, 2014 General Election 30 S. SADHWANI

6.) Scatterplot of precinct votes with ﬁtted regression line for Asian American voters in Assembly District 14, 2016 General Election POLITICS, GROUPS, AND IDENTITIES 31

7.) Scatterplot of precinct votes with ﬁtted regression line for Asian American voters in Assembly District 27, 2016 General Election 32 S. SADHWANI

8.) Scatterplot of precinct votes with ﬁtted regression line for Asian American voters in Congres- sional District 17, 2012–2016 General Election POLITICS, GROUPS, AND IDENTITIES 33 34 S. SADHWANI

Appendix 3. Background on ecological inference, eiCompare and diagnostics of data In the 1950s Goodman (1953, 1959) identiﬁed a basic bivariate regression he termed “ecological regression” for the use of “ecological data,” or variables that describe groups such as race. Good- man’s bivariate ecological regression uses the method of bounds to estimate voting by ethnic group by asking how precincts that were 100% non-Asian or 100% Asian would have voted, on average (Kousser 2001). The analysis is an ordinary least squares model that takes the simple, linear form POLITICS, GROUPS, AND IDENTITIES 35

Y=a+bX+e, where Y, the dependent variable, is the percentage of the total vote that a particular candidate receives; and X, the independent variable, is the percentage of Asian voters. The variable a, or the point at which the regression line intercepts the left vertical axis, estimates the percentage of the non-Asians who voted for a candidate. The variable b is the slope of the regression line and e represents a margin of error. The sum of a + b is used as the estimate of the percentage of Asians who voted for a particular candidate. Using this method, I plot the percentage of the vote for each candidate against the percentage of the voters in the precinct who had Asian surnames. Across the elections, the graphs indicate that as the percentage of Asian voters increased, the percentage of the vote for the Asian candidate also increased (See Appendix 2). The critiques of ecological regression are well documented in the literature. Robinson (2009) famously argued that relying on aggregate data to infer individual behavior may be misleading, one of the most obvious deficiencies being some vote estimates that fall beyond 100% of the vote (Ferree 2004; Herron and Shotts 2003). Since that time, significant improvements have been made to both the statistical logic of the method and advancements in computing technology. In response to criticism of the method’s unreliability, Gary King (1997) advanced an ecological inference (EI) solution building off an assumption of data being distributed not on a normal curve, but instead a ‘truncated normal distribution’ (King 1997; Cho 1998; Kousser 2001). Whereas the parameters of a normal distribution can range from plus infinity to minus infinity – thereby creating estimates that fall beyond 100% of a vote – King’s truncated distribution limits vote estimations to the 0–100 range. In addition, King’s procedure takes into account demographic bounds not at the district level, but at the precinct level, improving the precision of estimation at each and every precinct. King’s method was largely developed for a 2 × 2 examination of African American and white voters and two candidates. As the United States demographic landscape transformed, a 2 × 2 table is no longer sufficient to analyze the role of emergent Latinx and Asian American voting communities. King and Katz (1999), Goodman (1953), Tam Cho and Gaines (2004) and Rosen et al. (2001) extended King’s 1997 solution using Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods to advance a hierarch- ical Bayesian “rows by columns” (R × C) approach that could better accommodate multiple candidates, races and ethnicities. At its inception, the iterative approach was limited by computing ability. Today, however, EI and R × C no longer require supercomputing, making them a more accessible approach for researchers. The two methods have been used extensively in Voting Rights Act cases, including a recent case from the city of Santa Clara, California to examine vote dilution of Asian Americans.17 Despite these advancements, Tam Cho and Gaines (2004) urge researchers to proceed with caution when developing ecological inference estimations. They advise three necessary conditions: First, that aggregate data must be “informative.” To that end, they recommend the use of tomography plots as a diagnostic test of the distribution of the data. The tomography lines plot all logically possible pairs of parametric values (in this case, the percentage of the Asian vote to the non-Asian vote for each candidate) and are deemed informative if there is a “general area of intersection” of the lines (155). Second, they urge a test of aggregation bias to ensure that estimation parameters (betas) are not correlated with the regressors (the X variable). They recommend a simple test to compare EI results to Goodman’s OLS results. While the two methods will produce variations in standard errors, OLS will provide “reasonable, unbiased and consistent estimates” of the parameters if no aggregation bias exists (156; see also Goodman 1953). Finally, Tam Cho and Gaines, rightly, urge researchers in their pursuit of aggregate data analysis to have a microtheory that is well situated and sensitive to existing knowledge and theory of voting behavior and candidate strategy. In effect, the eiCompare package aids in the diagnostics called for by Tam Cho & Gaines’ first two necessary conditions. Tomography plots were developed for each of the elections of consider- ation and provide evidence of a “general area of intersection” across all elections (See Appendix 3). Goodman and EI comparisons were also generated and found to be “reasonable” (See Appendix 2 Goodman), thus satisfying these minimum conditions called for by Tam Cho and Gaines. Finally, to Tam Cho and Gaines’ call for a well-situated theory, we should expect to see pan-ethnic convergence among Asian Americans in their voting behavior given rising levels of linked fate as a pan-ethnic group. Consistent with existing survey research, that national origin identities have remained salient for Asian Americans and do influence political behavior outcomes. Thus, my 36 S. SADHWANI hypotheses seek to confirm what the existing literature would expect, but what has not previously been studied. Citations for this section appear in the full list of citations. Tomography Plots showing a “general area of intersection”

7.) Tomography plots for Assembly District 17, 2016 General Election POLITICS, GROUPS, AND IDENTITIES 37

8.) Tomography plots for Congressional District 17, 2016 General Election