Kamala Harris energizes South Asian voters, a growing force in key states

JOHNS CREEK, Georgia – A drive through Atlanta’s sprawling suburbs passes cultural centers, schools and houses of worship that opened when the area became the nation’s sixth-largest metropolitan area.

Attesting to the diversity of this growth, stores and bright billboards display advertisements in Chinese, Korean, Spanish and Hindi. The changes have been striking, even to residents who have experienced them.

“There were a handful of Indians when I was growing up,” said Hemant Ramachandran, an Atlanta attorney who grew up in Gwinnett County, a short drive from Atlanta and in the heart of Georgia’s growing Asian American community.

Some Atlanta Suburbs Are Becoming Asian American

In parts of Gwinnett, as well as neighboring Forsyth and Fulton counties, most census tracts and schools are now majority Asian-American, according to county and Census Bureau data.

“The neighborhood has changed a lot since I was a kid. It really wasn’t like where I grew up or anywhere else in metro Atlanta,” Ramachandran added.

Vice President Kamala Harris will travel to Georgia on Tuesday for what her advisers say will be the largest campaign rally since she became the likely Democratic nominee. The daughter of Jamaican and Indian immigrants will seek to appeal to voters in a region where Asian American voters, including Indian American communities, are likely to play a central role in the election.

Harris’s identity as a woman of Indian descent has sparked conversations around the kitchen table in many Asian American and immigrant homes in metro Atlanta and energized local advocates. For many in Atlanta’s Indian-American community, Harris’s story resonates in a unique way.

“The South Asian community here is pretty excited because this is really unprecedented,” said Ashwin Ramaswami, a 24-year-old tech entrepreneur and state Senate candidate for a competitive seat that covers much of Atlanta’s affluent northeast suburbs.

American Indians in Politics

Harris’ rise comes at a time when Native Americans enjoy particularly high visibility and influence in politics.

There are five Indian-Americans in Congress. Usha Vance, the wife of Ohio Senator and Republican vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance, is of Indian descent, as are two of the most prominent candidates in the 2024 Republican primary, Nikki Haley and Vivek Ramaswamy.

Democratic Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Washington state, who chairs the Congressional Progressive Caucus, was one of the first lawmakers Harris reached out to for support after President Joe Biden dropped out of the race.

Indian Americans now make up the largest population among Asian Americans, according to a recent U.S. Census survey. Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and Michigan have relatively large Indian communities that could prove crucial in a tight race for the Oval Office.

The Georgia legislature has seven Asian-American lawmakers from both parties. In Fulton and Gwinnett counties to the north, high school auditoriums now regularly serve as venues for classical Indian dance recitals. Events like the Johns Creek International Festival draw thousands from across the region.

Buoyed by enthusiasm among the Democratic base over the vice presidential nomination, Harris’ campaign has been staging events in Georgia. The campaign rallied 300 Harris supporters Saturday in Forsyth County, a longtime Republican stronghold that has become more contested as it has grown and diversified.

Does shared identity equal votes?

To be sure, Harris’s identity as the first Black Asian American vice president doesn’t necessarily translate into votes. Indian Americans, and Asian Americans in general, are a very diverse bloc by any measure. In conversations with more than a dozen Indian American voters, many said they didn’t know much about the vice president’s record and thought her background was interesting but irrelevant to the campaign.

“I don’t have a lot of perspective on Kamala Harris right now,” said Ashish Sahu, a software engineer in Alpharetta, an Atlanta-area city of about 65,000. Sahu said he expected to “hear more about her in a few debates or during her campaign.” He added that most people in his personal life and broader community in the Atlanta suburbs “are pretty educated and independent and are waiting to see who the best candidate is.”

Ramachandran, the Atlanta attorney, said: “I think the more representation we have, the more I feel like representation doesn’t matter as much.”

He doesn’t feel that prominent Indian-American politicians particularly emphasize their heritage and sometimes hold radically different political positions. But he adds that many members of the Indian diaspora, like many immigrant communities, feel “a kind of instinctive sense of pride when people say, ‘Look, this person is from where I’m from.'”

And he and Harris had at least one experience in common.

“The same beach she walked on as a child, I also walked on when I was a child visiting my grandparents,” Ramachandran said.

Last week, a group called South Asian Women for Harris held a call that drew more than 4,000 women and raised more than $250,000 in two hours. Speakers included celebrities like Mindy Kaling and Jayapal. The congresswoman spoke about working with Harris on the legislation while it was in the Senate, and Harris’ strength in championing reproductive rights.

A country where everything is possible

Participants on the call came from across the country, and many expressed enthusiasm for supporting Harris, whether through fundraising or voter mobilization efforts. The panelists encouraged them to stay involved.

Organizers paid tribute to Win with Black Women, which kicked off a wave of calls for support that drew tens of thousands of black women participants and raised more than $1 million.

“A lot of people are very excited. My photo album is cluttered with WhatsApp content right now, from everywhere (with) Kamala Harris stuff,” said Tanbir Chowdhury, president of They See Blue New York, a Democratic group that targets South Asian voters.

According to an AAPI Data/AP-NORC survey conducted in May, about half of AAPI Americans identify as Democrats, while about a quarter identify as Republicans. About a quarter identify as independents or do not identify with any political party. The results were similar among AAPI adults of South Asian descent.

More than half of South Asian American adults had a positive view of Harris in the poll.

Chowdhury warned that Democrats “have a lot of work to do on this border security message” with South Asian voters and that issues like the cost of living and other economic concerns are at the forefront of South Asian voters’ minds.

Ramaswami, the tech entrepreneur whose mother grew up in Besant Nagar, Chennai, India, the same neighborhood as Harris’ mother, said the vice president’s campaign was important to him personally. He hopes the increased visibility of Indian Americans bodes well for increased political and cultural influence.

“It’s nice to know that no matter where you come from, what your background is or where your parents are from, this is a country where anything is really possible, if you want to serve the people and do the right thing,” he said.

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AP reporter Deepti Hajela and video journalist Joseph Frederick, both in New York, contributed.

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