A significant majority of Indian Americans are expected to vote for Democratic nominee Joe Biden as per a new report released on Tuesday by Indiaspora, a nonpartisan diaspora organisation, and AAPI Data, an organisation that conducts data and policy research.

Sixty six per cent of Indian American voters favour Mr.

Biden has a sizeable majority of the anticipated votes, the Democratic numbers are lower than in 2016 , where Indian Americans overwhelmingly (77%) voted for Hillary Clinton versus the 16% who voted for Mr.

However, 67% of Indian Americans had said they would vote for Ms.

Fifty four per cent of Indian Americans identify as Democrats, 16% as Republicans and 24% as Independents as per the report.

The survey results are derived from AAPI Data’s 2020 Asian American Voter Survey which consisted of 1,569 (+/- 2% margin of sampling error) Asian American voters (including 260 registered voters identifying as Asian Indian margin of sampling error of +/- 6%).

Almost all (98%) of the Indian Americans surveyed said they would vote in the upcoming election while 54% said they voted in the primaries this year.

Through the use of campaign events and commercials, the Democratic and Republican parties have made a play for Indian American votes this year, which are seen as particularly crucial in battleground states (those with close races) such as Pennsylvania, Michigan, Georgia, North Carolina, Florida, Georgia, Texas and Arizona.

“I think Democrats absolutely should be concerned about making sure they conduct sufficient outreach to Indian Americans…because every vote is going to count, especially in those battleground states,” Raja Krishnamoorthi, a legislator from Illinois said during a panel discussion that accompanied the launch of the survey report.

In terms of voter outreach, 56% of Indian Americans had been contacted by the Democratic party in 2020 compared to 48% by the GOP.

Asian Americans are the fastest growing racial group and Indian Americans are the fastest growing within that group , Karthick Ramakrishnan, a University of California professor and founder of AAPI Data, said.

There are 4.16 million Indian Americans, 4.5 million if you count individuals who have some Indian ancestry.

This week’s survey results show foreign policy ranks lower than many domestic issues for Indian American voters.

foreign policy towards Asia ranks relatively low compared to domestic issues in the minds of Indian American voters.

Overall, 54% of Asian Americans voters (Indian, Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, Japanese, and Filipino) said they were voting for Mr.

Indian Americans had the strongest inclination to vote for Mr.

Ramakrishnan said during the release of the Asian American Voter Survey.

“With a majority saying that they are even more enthusiastic than usual about this election suggests that we will see record turnout for Asian Americans for a Presidential election in 2020.”?