Diversity Matters: The Election of Asian Americans to U.S. State and Federal Legislatures

Abstract

Despite substantial research on descriptive representation for Blacks and Latinos, we know little about the electoral conditions under which Asian candidates win office. Leveraging a new dataset on Asian American legislators elected from 2011 to 2020, combined with pre-existing and newly conducted surveys, we develop and test hypotheses related to Asian American candidates’ ingroup support, and their crossover appeal to other racial and ethnic groups. The data show Asian Americans preferring candidates of their own ethnic origin and of other Asian ethnicities to non-Asian candidates, indicating strong ethnic and panethnic motives. Asian candidates have comparatively strong crossover appeal, winning at higher rates than Blacks or Latinos for any given percentage of the reference group. All else equal, Asian American candidates fare best in multiracial districts, so growing diversity should benefit their electoral prospects. This crossover appeal is not closely tied to motives related to relative group status or threat.

Unlinking Linked Fate: The Push and Pull Factors of Group Consciousness

“…23 Such efforts can be a double-edged sword. Fluid boundaries can increase a group's size and, thus, its presumptive electoral and political power (Lublin and Wright 2024). At the same time, fluidity can also result in confusion and ambiguity regarding in-group membership and out-group boundaries.…”

“…Nonetheless, we do not dismiss the role of using political representation messages to mobilize Asian Americans, given its historical and contemporary importance. After all, a record number of Asian Americans have been mobilized to vote in recent elections (Chan, Nguy, and Masuoka 2024), Asian American candidates are increasingly successful in winning elected office (Lublin and Wright 2024;Phillips 2021), and studies show that the presence of Asian American candidates increases Asian American voter turnout (Sadhwani 2022).…”