Why Indian Americans are shifting right – and poised to serve in top Trump roles
For decades, Democrats could count on votes from Indian Americans, a fast-growing immigrant population with high turnout rates at elections.
Now, that political alignment may be in flux. As the United States moved right in November’s election amid discontent over the economy and immigration, cracks have appeared in what was a bedrock of support.
Why We Wrote This
President-elect Donald Trump’s nomination of several Indian Americans to high-profile posts is emblematic of a rightward shift among this highly educated, affluent voting group.
“While we didn’t see much of a shift [toward Donald Trump] in 2020, we certainly saw one in 2024 ... so this could be a turning point,” says Milan Vaishnav, the director of the South Asia program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Since the election, the president-elect has nominated Indian Americans to prominent positions in his administration. These include Jay Bhattacharya as director of the National Institutes of Health and Kash Patel as his nominee to lead the FBI. Vice President JD Vance’s wife, Usha Vance, will also make history as the first Indian American second lady.
A preelection survey of Indian Americans by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace found that nearly 1 in 3 respondents planned to vote for Mr. Trump, up from 22% in a similar poll in 2020.
For decades, Democrats could count on votes from Indian Americans, a fast-growing immigrant population with high turnout rates at elections. More educated and more affluent on average than other immigrant groups, Americans of Indian descent seemed a natural fit for a progressive party that likes to tout its multiracial, multi-faith coalition.
Now, that political alignment may be in flux. As the United States moved right in November’s election amid discontent over the economy and immigration, cracks have appeared in what was a bedrock of support. In districts in California and New York where many Indian American and other Asian immigrants live, Donald Trump and other Republican candidates far outperformed expectations, in part by running against Democratic policies in those states.
Since the election, in which Mr. Trump defeated Vice President Kamala Harris, who is Black and of Indian descent, the president-elect has named Indian Americans to prominent positions in his administration. These include Jay Bhattacharya as nominee for director of the National Institutes of Health, Harmeet Dhillon to run the Civil Rights Division at the Department of Justice, Kash Patel as his nominee to lead the FBI, Sriram Krishnan as senior White House policy advisor for artificial intelligence, and Vivek Ramaswamy as co-chair of the new Department of Government Efficiency. Vice President JD Vance’s wife, Usha Vance, will also make history as the first Indian American second lady.
Why We Wrote This
President-elect Donald Trump’s nomination of several Indian Americans to high-profile posts is emblematic of a rightward shift among this highly educated, affluent voting group.
These high-profile roles, and the partisan swing in 2024, raise the question of whether Republicans can build on their growing popularity among Indian Americans. Roughly 70% of Indian immigrants to the U.S. have arrived since 2000 and are known as the IT Generation because many moved to study and find jobs in the U.S. technology industry.
This generation may be less tethered to the Democratic Party than their predecessors who arrived in the 1970s and 1980s. Republicans hope to win them over, in part by taking on affirmative action and other Democratic policies pushed by the party’s left that are seen as counter to the meritocratic promise held out to new immigrants.
“I hope President Trump will deliver on the promises that he put [forward], because those are Indian American values. Focus on meritocracy, focus on education, focus on national security, focus on family and faith,” says Srilekha Palle, a health care administrator and political consultant in Virginia who chairs Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s Asian Advisory Board.
Tracking GOP gains with Indian Americans
Analysts are waiting for more voting data to see exactly how Indian Americans and other Asian minorities voted in 2024. But preelection polls and precinct voting patterns point to a small but significant shift among Indian Americans, one that adds to Democratic concerns about sagging support from Latinos and other demographic groups that make up a growing share of the electorate. Indian Americans, who number 4.8 million, are now the second-largest immigrant group in the U.S. after Mexican Americans.
A preelection survey of Indian Americans by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace found that nearly 1 in 3 respondents planned to vote for Mr. Trump, up from 22% in a similar poll in 2020. Another survey, the American Electorate Voter Poll, found a similar level of support (33%) for Mr. Trump among Indian Americans, with 66% of voters favoring Ms. Harris. (In the same survey, Chinese American support for the Democratic nominee fell by 19 points compared with 2020.)
Still, those numbers signal change: In 2016, according to an analysis of election data by the University of California at Riverside, only 16% of Indian Americans voted for Mr. Trump.
“The door has cracked open a bit,” says Milan Vaishnav, the director of Carnegie’s South Asia program. “While we didn’t see much of a shift [toward Trump] in 2020, we certainly saw one in 2024 … so this could be a turning point.”
The gains for Republicans in the Carnegie poll were led by Indian American men under age 40, most of them born in the U.S., who were more pro-Trump than both men and women over 40.
One unknown, says Mr. Vaishnav, is the draw of Trump’s personality and whether the attraction fades after he leaves the stage. But he also notes that two Indian American candidates, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, and Mr. Ramaswamy, a biotech investor, ran in the GOP presidential primary.
Education and meritocracy matter
Six members of the next Congress, all Democrats, are of Indian descent. The newest is Suhas Subramanyam, who was elected to an open seat in northern Virginia, an increasingly diverse district in which Asian Americans make up around 15% of residents. Mr. Subramanyam, a state senator, won with a smaller margin than his Democratic predecessor, which he attributes in part to his unfamiliarity with voters and tailwinds from the presidential race.
But he also spoke to Democrats who had soured on the party. “We heard from a lot of South Asians especially that they had voted for Democrats most of their adult lives, and this was going to be one of the first times [that] they consider Republicans, or outright vote for Republicans,” he says.
One issue that came up was education. Virginia has been roiled by partisan battles over school choice and control of public school boards. Mr. Subramanyam heard from voters unhappy over admissions to Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, a prestigious magnet school in Alexandria. Parents sued the school district over a 2020 decision to promote greater diversity that led to a sharp fall in Asian American enrollment. The policies remain in place after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the case in February.
Ms. Palle, the Republican consultant, says this issue was a boon for her party’s candidates in Virginia and resonates strongly with Indian Americans. “Each family has a story to tell us how the schools and colleges have not been accepting our children,” she says.
Mr. Subramanyam says he understands the frustration of parents in his district and supports merit-based admissions to elite schools. “A rising tide lifts all boats. We should make sure public education is strong in all communities,” he says.
But like other Democrats, he argues that the party is a better fit for Indian Americans and other Asian communities than Republicans. Polls show Democratic policies on abortion access and gun control, among others, are popular with Indian Americans.
Chintan Patel, executive director of Indian American Impact, a progressive group that works to elect South Asian candidates, says Democrats need to stay focused on these issues. “We’re focused on science and education and a fair, just immigration system. We’re focused on climate action. We’re focused on gun violence prevention,” he says.
Other issues that favor Democrats include religious diversity and tolerance. Republican ties to evangelical Christianity and its social agenda are viewed negatively by Indian Americans, according to the Carnegie survey. Indian Americans who have risen in the party have mostly been Christians, including Ms. Haley and Bobby Jindal, the Republican former governor of Louisiana. Both were Christian converts. Most Indian Americans are Hindus, Sikhs, or Muslims.
After Ms. Dhillon, Mr. Trump’s nominee to serve in the Justice Department, delivered a Sikh prayer onstage at the Republican National Convention held in Milwaukee in August, she received a blast of online criticism from Trump supporters who decried worship of a “foreign god.” Ms. Dhillon, who has represented Mr. Trump in some of his legal cases, has also litigated religious-freedom cases.
President Biden’s administration also has several prominent Indian Americans, including Neera Tanden, a domestic policy adviser, and Vivek Murthy, the surgeon general.
And as more members of the IT Generation of Indian Americans enter politics, this visibility could become a trend in both parties, says Mr. Vaishnav. “This is something that I think spans partisanship. It’s a generational story,” he says.
