Sarah Poontong, 49, became a citizen late last year and one of the first things she did was register to vote.
She’s part of a notable trend — Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islanders have had the largest increase in voter registration of any racial group in the country from January to June, compared to the same period during the 2020 election cycle. That’s according to analysis first shared with NBC News from the civic engagement nonprofit APIAVote and the research company TargetSmart.
Experts say the gains can be attributed to the increasing numbers of first-generation immigrants who are getting naturalized, and more young U.S.-born Asian Americans who have come of age, as well as greater efforts to get out the vote. From 1960 to 2019, there was a 29-fold increase in immigrants from Asia coming to the U.S. And the group was more likely than the overall foreign-born population to get naturalized. Since 2020, the racial group has represented the fastest-growing segment of eligible voters.
That’s true for Poontong. She said she felt that as an Asian immigrant from Thailand and daughter of factory workers, big ticket issues often excluded her. She said it felt as though her vote didn’t count, so she never cast one. But after the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, Poontong said she couldn’t sit back any longer.
“I realized just how important it is to vote in your local elections and the presidential election,” Poontong, who lives in Chicago and works in operations and finance, said. “So I made the conscious choice to get my citizenship and register to vote, and I voted for the first time in the primaries.”
Christine Chen, executive director of APIAVote, said the gains can be attributed to not only a growing population that has come of voting age, but also to the political momentum and activism against anti-Asian hate that galvanized the Asian American community during the last election and at the height of the pandemic.
Such organizing was largely orchestrated by the same groups that have long been behind get-out-the-vote efforts and helped draw more attention to voting and civic engagement, she said. It’s important, Chen said, given that the Asian American and Pacific Islander electorate has exceeded the margin of victory in a number of states, including Georgia in the 2020 election.
“There’s just a feeling of not being safe and not being secure. So I think people are looking for change,” Chen said. “They’re recognizing that this is part of the equation — that they need to lean in and actually participate.”
Researchers looked at national voter registration data up until June 4, the latest date for which all 50 states released their numbers, and compared them to the same point in 2020. They found that registration for Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islanders increased by 43%, from 550,682 to 787,982 voters. That’s more than double the increase compared to both new Black and white voters.
Chen said that historically the community hadn’t seen as dramatic gains in political participation. However, things changed in 2020 when Asian Americans had a significant double-digit increase in presidential election turnout. In the last few years, Chen said, more resources and more community organizations have been dedicated to turning out the vote.
“So leading into 2020 there were a lot more efforts from the community to talk about building political power and connecting that to voting,” Chen said. “Then you have the rise of anti-Asian violence and the pandemic. … People are still feeling that elected officials, not enough of them are hearing from us and paying attention to us. And so I think that also continued to drive the growth.”
Karthick Ramakrishnan, co-founder of the research nonprofit AAPI Data, said that the growth is also driven by naturalized citizens, who make up a majority of Asian American eligible voters. In fiscal year 2022, roughly 1 million lawful immigrants became U.S. citizens, almost matching record highs of 1996 and 2008.
Those who’ve been in the U.S. for a long time, in particular, are more likely to take that next step and register to vote, he said.
“But if they’ve lived in the country longer, they tend to be more interested in politics, more likely to be engaged, more likely to be reached out to, and therefore more likely to register to vote if they’re naturalized,” he said.
Ramakrishnan also noted that some states have made it much easier and more convenient for naturalized citizens to register to vote in a civic engagement process that can be difficult for immigrants to navigate.
“Changes in voter registration rules in a handful of states that are making it much easier and much more automatic for people to be registered to vote,” he said.
Of course, many others are compelled to register as this election feels more “controversial,” Ramakrishnan said, adding that it’s “hard to have a neutral stance on Trump.”
“It’s undeniable that Donald Trump has increased people’s interest in engaging with politics. He’s a polarizing figure,” he said. “Either people are energized in support of Trump or opposed to Trump.”
Poontong said she’s been among those who have felt this election to be a particularly pivotal moment in history and even scheduled a vacation around the polls in November, so that she can show up in person. Her biggest concern, she said, is reproductive rights.
“That’s my No. 1 issue — just to make sure that we, moving forward, have bodily autonomy,” she said.
Ramakrishnan pointed out that since the data set ended before Vice President Kamala Harris entered the race, it’s likely that the increase in Asian American voter registration is even more dramatic.
“We’re seeing this more generally, regardless of race and ethnicity, but especially what I’ve seen is among younger voters, among female voters, voter registration has gone up significantly in the last month,” he said. “I would expect the Harris candidacy to also drive higher voter registration and higher voter interest among Asian Americans.”
