Orange County precinct map

[mileslunn]

Wow, those are huge swings towards Obama in the Vietnamese areas. Most of them were 55-60% McCain, now in some areas as much as 60% Obama. McCain probably overperformed in 2008, but this has to be by far the best Democratic performance with Vietnamese voters since before the Vietnam War.

I wonder if Obama won the Vietnamese vote as I know amongst Asians they tend to vote most heavily GOP whereas East Indians are the strongest for the Democrats.  That would be something if he did since if I am not mistaken this group has always favoured the GOP.

[mileslunn]

Obama most certainly won the Vietnamese vote. Democrats usually win the Vietnamese vote in San Jose (and I suspect the PacNW but I'm not certain), but usually lose it in Orange County. This time he won it in both places.

I am guessing they won every Asian subgroup as usually the Vietnamese, Filipinos, and Koreans have tended to lean GOP, whereas Chinese and Japanese leaned Democrat.  The East Indian which are the fastest growing have tended to vote more heavily Democrat than any of the other Asian groups thus that might explain why it is harder to win the Asian vote than 20 years ago (Both Reagan and Bush Sr. won the Asian vote both times).  In fact of the non-white groups, I am thinking the Cubans were probably the only one the GOP carried and even there it was just barely.  Possible albeit unlikely they carried the native Hawaiian who tend to be quite conservative and also the Cherokee as Oklahoma is 15% Cherokee and went massively Republican. 

[mileslunn]

The reuters poll had Hindus at 23% Romney, so you make a very good point. Even the fact that a lot of Indians live in the Bay Area and NYC doesn't explain them voting so Democrat. I am Indian myself and even I don't know how to fully explain it. Some of the reasons could be an aversion to Bush and his policies (and perceived profiling of people who look Arab), the fact that the first exposure to American culture for many Indians is an university, as well as the fact that they are not Christian for the most part. While the Republican party will never say this is a white country (even if they may support policies in certain states that would like to implement that), they are not afraid of saying this is a Christian country. Most other Asian groups tend to be much more Christian, especially Koreans and Filipinos. Maybe if Democrats raise taxes on those making more than 100k, there could be a swing to Republicans. Maybe. At least I know my dad would.

It might be cultural too as I know here in Canada the East Indian community tends to go heavily for parties on the left whereas the Chinese, Korean, Filipino, and Vietnamese are much more favourable to voting parties on the right.  Also the fact many are high tech may have an impact as rightly or wrongly, the GOP is seen as anti-science which I think turns off a lot in those fields.

Interesting it seems the Dems are strongest near the I5 in the north, otherwise it seems across the country areas close to an interstate highway are more Democrat than areas accessible only by side roads.