Updated: November 3, 2020 7:29:17 pm
US IMPACT team with Republican candidates (Source: Khushboo Rawlley)
Against the backdrop of what many consider one of the most tumultuous election cycles in U.S. history, Indian-Americans who campaigned for President Donald Trump and his Democratic contender Joe Biden had to push themselves this time. With less than 24 hours to go on Election Day in the United States, the Indian-American voting community is as divided as the rest of the United States. For Biden’s accomplices, a Trump victory in 2020 would spell a victory for bigotry and white supremacy, while those answering for Trump’s re-election focus on the economy, jobs and Indo-US ties.
US IMPACT, a Dallas-based conservative American Indian advocacy group, believes that Trump’s reelection is just what its community needs. In addition to lowering taxes and pushing for law and order, says co-founder Amit Warkad under President Trump, strategic relations between the United States and India have flourished like never before. Earlier this year, they were approached by the national ‘Trump Victory 2020’ campaign to help expand their reach to American Indian voters. The group has already reached out to tens of thousands of Desis Americans and encouraged them to vote for President Trump.
Meanwhile, the Indian Americans for Biden-Harris campaign has been deploying volunteers with the goal of targeting undecided voters within the community. “These are people who don’t want to vote for Trump, but they don’t know enough about Joe Biden,” said Sasha Virk, a 21-year-old volunteer with the Biden-Harris campaign in Sacramento, California. “The campaign comes in and aims to answer all your questions or queries impartially.”
Follow LIVE UPDATES on the US elections here
Bell
With the number of coronavirus cases in the country and the death toll steadily rising, campaign efforts were largely relegated to the digital realm for both camps. Door-to-door scrutiny, where volunteers visit voters’ homes to sell out a presidential candidate, has taken a backseat due to the threat posed by the deadly infection.
According to Warkad, co-founder of US IMPACT, this was not necessarily a bad thing. “I found that the pandemic created a level playing field when it came to campaigns, because for better or for worse, everyone was suddenly focusing on the virtual,” he said.
In addition to extensive phone banking, the group has also developed an algorithm that helped the Trump campaign obtain data on American Indian voters from the country’s total voting population. In the weeks leading up to Election Day, other campaigning methods, such as walking en bloc and saluting at the polls, were adopted on a smaller scale.
Biden’s campaign volunteers in California have been actively involved in door-to-door campaigns to distribute brochures detailing Biden-Harris policy proposals, but with strict Covid-19 regulations. These means of campaigning are “extremely important in reducing current confusion and helping voters make an informed choice,” said Sasha.
READ | 2020 US Elections: Battlefield States See Most Voting Misinformation
President Donald Trump and former vice president of Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden participate in the final presidential debate at Belmont University on Thursday, Oct. 22, 2020, in Nashville, Tennessee (AP).
For Dev Makkar, a retired New Jersey banking executive and founder of the Registered ‘Indians for Trump’ Political Action Committee (PAC), the past few months have been filled with calls and scheduled Zoom live broadcasts. He was forced to keep his campaign strictly digital as most of his group members are older people. “I am over 64, so I can’t go out. Everybody is working, so when we can on the weekends we try to have a meeting at Zoom, ”he told indianexpress.com.
Change of tides?
The political tide is slowly turning among Indian-Americans, most of whom have traditionally supported the Democratic Party, according to Khushboo “Khush” Rawlley, co-founder of US IMPACT and now a member of the advisory council for the ‘Indian Voices for Trump’s coalition. “I see a huge wave of people coming out openly and supporting Trump, which I didn’t see in 2016 when Trump was a political rookie. But now I see that people are definitely understanding what their policies are, ”he said.
Sasha, a Biden supporter, agrees to some extent, suggesting that the chaotic nature of this election has left traditionally Democratic voters in conflict. “It is very important to raise awareness about Biden’s position on key issues such as healthcare, climate change, immigration, among others,” he added.
Dev Makkar has also noticed a change in attitude towards the president. He claims he was one of the first American Indians to openly support Trump when he was nominated by the Republican Party in 2015. “Back then, the favorite in the community was Hillary Clinton. Everyone in the Indian community thought that Trump was a rebel and began to criticize me saying that I always go against the community, ”he recalled.
However, according to a recent poll, 72 percent of American Indian voters said they would vote for Democratic candidate Joe Biden, while 22 percent plan to vote for the incumbent. The American Indian Attitudes Survey (IAAS), which included 936 respondents of Indian origin, suggested that there is “little indication of a shift toward the Republican Party.”
Read also | A Guide to Tracking the 2020 U.S. Election Results
Khushboo “Khush” Rawlley is a co-founder of US IMPACT and a member of the advisory council of India’s ‘Voices for Trump’.
Conflicting concerns
Unlike any previous election, political activism among the American Indian community is heightened because of the stakes, says Loveneet Kaur Sidhu, a political science student at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside who is active in the Biden campaign. -Harris. “The last four years have shown us what America is like under Trump,” Loveneet said, referring to the rise in hate crimes against people of color. Having spent her entire life in the indecisive state of Wisconsin, Loveneet has first-hand experience of the rise in systemic racism since the state turned red in 2016.
Based on his interactions with Biden supporters and campaign members, issues such as immigration, specifically the H 1-B visa ban, and the vandalism of religious sites such as temples, mosques and gurdwaras were the main concerns raised by Loveneet. and Sasha.
In the Obama-Biden administration “they had the FBI expand their hate crime statistics to count Sikhs, Hindus and Buddhists. Biden has stated that if he is elected president, he will address the issue of hate crime offenders and firearms, ”Loveneet said in response to a question about Biden-Harris policy proposals that are intended to benefit Native Americans. Americans.
Another hot topic that has caused much conflict between Republicans and Democrats is immigration. “I believe that a Biden administration will ensure prompt citizenship tracking or guarantee some form of permanent residence to undocumented immigrants, which includes more than 600,000 Indians,” says Sasha.
But Khushboo Rawlley, a board member of ‘Indian Voices for Trump’, disagrees. The staunch Republican believes that the current US president has done more for immigrants than most other administrations. “Trump supports merit-based legal immigration that helps Indian visa holders. It is also aligned with Bill S386 that the Indians have been trying to pass for years, ”he said.
READ | For the first time, American Indian voters, racial equality, the economy are the most important
Members of the Indian Voices for Trump team (Source: Khushboo Rawlley)
The Highly Skilled Immigrant Equity Act of 2019, or Bill S386, has been blocked in the Senate since it was first proposed last year. The bill seeks to remove the nationwide cap on the issuance of employment-based green cards to reduce growing backlog.
According to AAPI Data, there are about 1.8 million American Indian voters who are eligible to vote. But in the upcoming election, Sasha says the community has one of the lowest turnouts among minority groups. “I turn to Indian Americans to understand the reason behind this low turnout, and a common response I get is that they don’t feel welcome, this has gotten even deeper with the Trump administration,” Sasha notes.
“The choice goes far beyond jobs or money, it’s a question of survival,” Sasha said succinctly.
© IE Online Media Services Pvt Ltd
.
