The GOP Stealth Plan to Win Over Asian American Voters

When The Daily Beast reported on the plans to make the Republican National Committee “white again” in March, the party was quick to deny that it was deprioritizing voters of color—even though the committee was scrapping plans to open new minority outreach centers.

Since then, there’s been little word about what exactly Republicans have in mind when it comes to attracting voters of color, who have traditionally supported Democrats by wide margins. That’s especially true when it comes to Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) voters, who make up a small but rapidly growing 6 percent of the electorate.

But sources with knowledge of RNC efforts to win over these voters told The Daily Beast that Republicans aren’t abandoning outreach programs for AAPI voters. They’re actually doubling down—quietly.

“I don’t think they’re deprioritizing anything on this or taking them for granted,” a person knowledgeable about the GOP’s Asian American outreach efforts told the Daily Beast. “The folks on the ground on the Asian side were already set with the former president to be the nominee.”

“State parties are really moving towards engaging with the communities,” this person continued. “Campaigns are listening. The Trump campaign is listening a lot when it comes to this. They pay attention because they understand the demographics.”

This source added that the efforts to win over Asian American voters wasn’t as broadcasted as some other efforts, but that Republicans truly do see that demographic as potentially critical. “They care massively,” this person said of Republicans. “These are voters that voted for him before.”

Exit polls indeed show that in 2016 and 2020, Trump slightly surpassed Mitt Romney’s 2012 performance among Asian Americans. And there is other data suggesting that the demographic has recently shifted right, though roughly two out of three Asian American and Pacific Islander voters still back Democrats.

The effort to sway Asian Americans goes all the way to the upper echelons of the Trump operation. California RNC member Shawn Steel, who has long pushed for better outreach to Asian Americans and is married to Korean American Rep. Michelle Steel (R-CA), recently met for a 10-minute conversation with the Trump team that ended up lasting three times that.

Jeff Gritchen/MediaNews Group/Orange County Register via Getty Images

Trump senior advisers have read an article Steel published in early April making the case for how Asian American voters could seal the former president’s victory. Steel said the Trump team is receptive to his plan, but nothing is fleshed out yet.

“They’re smart,” Steel said. “They know what it takes to win.”

Back in September 2012, Steel got proof of concept in Nevada, where his team sent out numerous mailers and made calls to Vietnamese, Korean and Chinese voters in their native languages.

After the election, a New York Times exit poll found that even though Romney only won 26 percent of Asian Americans nationwide, he won 47 percent of them in Nevada. This year, Steel is looking for the right state to repeat his success in Nevada. He’s already presented the case to the Trump team that the spending required is inconsequential.

“Any consultant who spends a dime on Fox ought to be pilloried in a public square with tiny little rocks,” Steel said. “But on the other hand, if you do a little Mom and Pop Hindi publication in central Michigan, and you give them a couple of thousand dollars a month, they’re gonna love you forever, give you free media, have extra big pictures, and that’s just how it’s always worked with ethnic media, at least in my professional background.”

Former RNC chair Ronna McDaniel, who stepped down in March after losing Trump’s endorsement, had been a particular advocate for throwing open the flaps of a big tent to more minority voters, including Asian Americans. She released statements during APA Heritage month and attended ribbon cuttings at community centers, party offices that the RNC opened around the country to connect with more minority voters. The centers served up bubble tea and cafecito alongside traditional conservative messaging about family values, immigration, education, and opportunity.

A Daily Beast analysis of the RNC’s rent payments and conversations with people familiar suggest that nearly all of the original community centers, including all of the Asian American-focused ones, closed at the end of 2022, casualties of bylaws prohibiting contracts that outlasted the chair’s term. One in Georgia is now the site of a sex toy shop.

But the effort began to ramp up again last year with the opening of several new community centers. Last August, the party advertised the grand opening of a new community center in Rep. Steel’s district. It now appears to be the only one focused on Asian American voters among the seven currently operating. Steel’s husband described the place as buzzing with activity.

“Tai Chi Tuesday afternoon, Vietnamese line dancing in the parking lot outside at 7:30 Saturday morning… how to become a U.S. citizen, ESL classes—all free, free, free and pretty much nonpolitical,” he said. “Except there’s giant signs of Michelle inside. That’s Michelle’s political headquarters at the same time. Our people are there, their people are there, sometimes we have to leave because it’s too noisy! Last night, there was karaoke. And that’s what it’s designed for.”

According to a person familiar, the RNC was on the brink of signing leases for even more new community centers when Trump’s new hand-picked leaders arrived and squashed those deals, arguing that minority outreach is about more than brick and mortar. But the new operation insists Asian American voters will still be a priority.

“There has been no bigger advocate for the AAPI community than President Trump, as he created an environment where diversity, equal opportunity, and prosperity were afforded to everybody,” wrote Trump campaign senior adviser Steven Cheung in a statement to the Daily Beast. “Anyone who says otherwise is disgustingly using the AAPI community to play political games for their own benefit. The 2024 campaign is poised to build upon the strength and successes of Asian Americans during President Trump’s first term to propel him to a historic second term victory.”

(Of course, many Asian Americans were also outraged at Trump over language he used connecting them to COVID-19 and his use of a racist nickname for Sen. Mitch McConnell’s wife, Elaine Chao.)

Still, the under-the-radar nature of the party’s efforts, especially just six months before the election, have left some community members scratching their heads.

Christine Chen, co-Founder and Executive Director of Asian Pacific Islander American Vote, told the Daily Beast that there’s been no word recently about what the GOP is doing in terms of AAPI outreach.

“Honestly, we haven’t heard much,” she said. “The biggest thing is really about the shake-up and staffers being let go. Ever since then, I haven’t really heard anything much.”

For years, Chen said, she was in touch with an RNC staffer focused on APA outreach, who she found helpful and responsive. But her contact recently left the committee, and she no longer knows who at the RNC to connect with about the presidential town hall her organization has scheduled this summer.

It’s not shocking that the RNC hasn’t told anti-Trump Republican strategist Rina Shah about its latest AAPI outreach efforts, either. But she’s surprised she’s not hearing about more GOP outreach in the Asian American communities she’s connected to, which include many voters who share her distaste for the former president.

She senses a shift from the 2010s, when she recalls then-RNC co-chair Sharon Day acknowledging the party’s shortcomings, saying things like, “We hate that our outreach to these communities, like the Asian American communities, is so eleventh hour. We hate it.’”

“I don’t think that’s going to be the case any more under Lara Trump,” Shah told the Daily Beast.

She added that Democrats and Republicans alike seem to be focusing on motivating their bases rather than expanding their coalitions as Trump’s legal problems sop up much of the country’s attention.

“Right now, both sides are doing what is, I think, the political playbook of working to turn out their bases, and so AAPI members become a bit of an afterthought with that,” Shah said.

In her view, Trump is using a “victim playbook” that does not win favor among Asian American voters. “When I see the victim playbook, I see a squandered opportunity to bring in more people under the banner,” she said.

Even now, some Republicans understand the value they’ll miss out on if they don’t try to make inroads. That’s especially true in House districts with large AAPI communities. In this year’s special election in New York’s 3rd District, for instance, NBC News reported that the Republican candidate met with Asian American groups, attended Lunar New Year celebrations, used WeChat to connect with those communities, and brought on phone-bankers who made calls in Asian languages.

Demographic trends emphasize the opportunity Republicans have to make gains among AAPI voters—or at least prevent losses. According to Chen, there’s been a recent increase in the share of Asian Americans who don’t identify very strongly with either party. That includes Vietnamese Americans—the subset of Asian Americans among whom the GOP has traditionally performed the strongest—who appear to be defining themselves more often as independent.

Between 2020 and 2022, the share of Vietnamese Americans who didn’t strongly identify with either of the two parties jumped from 34 percent to 46 percent, according to the Asian American Voter Survey. A robust outreach effort could help keep a greater share of those voters casting their ballots for Republicans.

Nonetheless, much of the national party is not familiar with the details. The typical Republican consultant has little personal experience with Asian Americans voters.

“He doesn’t know that Korea Times is a thicker publication than the LA Times,” Steel said, adding that “there’s multiple agendas and priorities and political technicians who need to be educated.” But Steel is willing to wait for that to happen.

“I’m a patient guy,” he said.