2 of 3 Fil-Ams are for Kamala

This piece is for the benefit of some old school friends, now living in the United States, who are fans of Donald Trump the Republican—which is their concern, not mine—because they insist that most Filipino Americans (Fil-Ams) are on their side in this year’s presidential election contest. The truth is that they are far outnumbered by Fil-Ams who are fans of Kamala Harris the Democrat.

My basis is the Pew Research Center’s national survey of 7,006 Asian adults in the US, including 1,051 Fil-Ams, in 2022/23, as reported in “Filipino Americans: A survey data snapshot” (www.pewresearch.org, 8/6/24). Pew is an extremely reputable, no-nonsense, nonpartisan, nonadvocacy research institute.

A sample of 1,000 respondents is gold-standard size, just for one Asian group. Pew also did separate studies of Chinese-, Indian-, Japanese-, Korean-, and Vietnamese Americans, presumably allotting them a thousand respondents each, or 6,000 for Asian Americans in all; then add 1,000 for non-Asian Americans.

Demographics of Filipino Americans. Pew estimates 4.1 million Fil-Ams living in the US as of 2022. They are 17 percent of the Asian American population. Unlike other Asian-origin groups, a majority (52 percent) of Fil-Ams are US-born; 75 percent of Filipino immigrants are naturalized citizens—second highest after Vietnamese Americans.

The Fil-Ams’ median income is $100,600 in 2022, similar to the $100,000 median for all Asian Americans.

Identity of Fil-Ams. Sixty-one percent usually identify themselves as Filipino or Filipino American; 20 percent say they are Asian or Asian American; only 13 percent simply call themselves “American.”

Although the great majority have favorable feelings about the Philippines, only 31 percent say they might move back—a feeling much stronger among immigrants (43 percent), than among the US-born (10 percent).

Seventy percent of Fil-Ams say they have already achieved, or are on their way toward, the “American dream.”

Politics of Fil-Ams. Two-thirds of Fil-Ams, or 2.7 million, are eligible to vote. Those who say they favor or lean toward the Democratic party are 68 percent. Those who favor or lean toward the Republican party are only 31 percent; hence the two-to-one ratio in today’s title.

The fact that Fil-Ams are 74 percent Christian, including 57 percent Catholic, does not make them lean toward the Republicans. In general, Fil-Ams don’t tag the Democratic party as “abortionist.”

About 1.6 million Fil-Ams live in California, a reliably blue or pro-Democrat state; 270,000 are in Hawaii, another blue state; and 208,000 are in Texas, a reliably red or pro-Republican state.

I see them as mainly protecting the Democrat lead in blue states and reducing the Republican lead in the red ones. I doubt if Fil-Ams by themselves would be enough to flip a swing state from red to blue. Perhaps they could, together with other ethnic minorities, who also tend to prefer the Democrats to the Republicans.

Voter turnout matters a lot in US elections. We Filipinos enjoy voting, with typically 75 to 80 percent going to the precincts on election day. But in the US, where election day is not a full day off from work, a two-thirds turnout is already record-breaking, and in some places goes even below half. I wonder if the newer Fil-Ams’ turnout could be above average, as a carry-over from their voting habits back here.

The US election race is now all even. The US has pollsters who work exclusively for one political party, media pollsters, academic pollsters, and unaffiliated pollsters; they share some numbers, but not all. From what I can see, the race has dramatically changed ever since Harris became the Democratic candidate instead of Joe Biden. Many blue numbers have even overtaken the red numbers.

Race watchers will have a need for both primary and aggregated data. For primary data, by all means, use Pew; I also recommend the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago (norc.org). The most popular aggregator used to be Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight (the total number of electoral college votes), but the 538-brand was apparently acquired by abcnews.go.com in 2023, and Nate Silver himself now publishes a Silver Bulletin (natesilver.net); both are worthwhile.

mahar.mangahas@sws.org.ph