New Delhi: Hindus living in the United States can potentially decide the next president of the United States—Kamala Harris or Donald Trump—if the election goes right down to the wire on 5 November, a study of the past poll trends in seven bellwether states by ThePrint suggests.
That should explain the ardent Diwali wishes and messages by the Democratic and Republican presidential nominees. Kamala Harris’s ‘X’ post triggered sharp reactions with many questioning her for embedding an old video clip of her celebrating Diwali. “Wait, are you Indian now?” asked an ‘X’ user. Harris maintained earlier that her mother, an Indian married to a Jamaican, was “very intentional” about raising her and her sister as “strong Black women”. Once she was set to be on the ticket, she started identifying her mother as a “brown woman with an accent”.
Trump condemned “barbaric violence” against Hindus and other minorities in Bangladesh, saying that it would have “never happened on my watch”, and accusing Harris of ignoring Hindus across the world and in the US.
The two gladiators in this US presidential poll arena seemed to have their eyes set on the Indian-American voters who might be minuscule in number—2.6 million voters—but could play a decisive role in the event of a tight finish. It’s especially so in the seven swing states where results remain unpredictable because of the strong presence of both Democrats and Republicans—unlike other states that are traditionally known to be decidedly either blue or red.
Sample two of these swing states, Arizona and Pennsylvania. In the 2020 presidential polls, Joe Biden became only the second Democrat in seven decades to win Arizona. His victory margin was 0.3 percent, or 10,457 votes. The Hindus constitute 1 percent of the population in Arizona, according to the Religious Landscape Study of the Pew Research Centre (PRC), making them potential kingmakers or queenmakers if the 2024 presidential election is equally close.
Biden won Pennsylvania in 2020 by a margin of 1.17 percent, outdoing Trump who had won the state in 2016 by a margin of 0.72 percent. Given that the Hindus, according to the PRC, constitute one percent of the population in Pennsylvania. They, too, may potentially play a decider in the event of a close finish.
Let’s look at another swing state, Georgia. Biden won Georgia by a margin of 0.23 percent, or 11,779 votes. The PRC’s study pegs the Hindu population at less than 1 percent.
The 2020 US Religion Census conducted by the Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies may give a more accurate picture. As per the census data, in Georgia, there are 11,055 ‘adherents’ to ‘Hindu Yoga and Meditation’, and 43,135 adherents to ‘Hindu Traditional Temples’. This might not give a complete picture of the Hindu Indian-American population but the data gives enough idea about how they can potentially play a decider if the victory margin is very low this time as well.
In the other swing states of Wisconsin, Nevada, Michigan and North Carolina, the margins of victory have been low in the past elections, ranging from less than one to less than three percent. The PRC study puts the Hindu population at less than one percent in these states—minuscule but very significant if the contests are very close. These seven swing states together have 93 electors in the presidential electoral college in which 270 is the majority mark.
Not that the Hindus or Indian-Americans vote (the two terms are not exactly synonymous or interchangeable though) as a monolithic bloc. According to the Indian American Attitudes Survey (IAAS) 2024, published by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 60 percent of Indian-American citizens plan to vote for Harris compared to 31 percent for Trump. The figures were 68 percent for the Democratic nominee and 22 percent for the Republican in the 2020 IAAS survey. About 67 percent of Indian-American women said in the survey that they intended to vote for Harris as opposed to 22 percent for Trump.
Milan Vaishnav, senior fellow and director of the South Asia Programme at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told ThePrint that the Indian American community is sizeable enough today to cover the margin of victory in key battleground states.
“Given that Hindus account for around half of all Indian Americans, they can be a pivotal bloc. Data from the 2024 Indian American Attitudes Survey suggests that non-Hindu Indian Americans favour Harris slightly more than Hindu Indian Americans, but the difference is not statistically significant,” he said.
Muslims are the most pro-Harris religious subgroup and Christians the least; Hindus are situated in between with around 58 percent backing Harris this election. “But it is not just voting that matters. Indian Americans are also prized as campaign donors, vote mobilisers, and influencers,” said Vaishnav.
(Edited by Tony Rai)
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