The California Republican Party has not had a voter registration effort in more than a decade. The Party just filed a complaint against Guv Newsom for not correctly filing his economic interest report, to the FPPC. That is good. Yet almost two years after it was known that 440,000 dead people and folks that moved out of State were getting live ballots, they have done nothing. So, for the Recall, those dead people—and more—will continue to get live ballots. Priorities.
“The approach is a step in the right direction, said Republican Assemblymember Janet Nguyen, who represents Westminster.
Nguyen points out that, unlike her own party, local Democratic Party offices have multiple full-time Vietnamese American staffers to engage with voters year-round. Republicans are also behind when it comes to investing in Vietnamese-language media. In the past, the Orange County Democratic Party has launched radio shows on Little Saigon Radio with the Vietnamese American Democratic Club, a grassroots organization that also broadcasts its own TV shows discussing key issues.
“The Democratic Party that I’ve seen throughout the years is, they know this is not a place for them to even bother. But they still make the effort, they still go out there,” she said. “[Democrats are] that friendly face that’s always out there and always shown that, ‘Hey, we’re here for you to talk about issues.’ [Voters] don’t get to hear what the Republican Party stands for, or be reminded what we stand for. So that’s why people are moving away.”
We need a real outreach—not just before an election. The Party should hold forums and townhalls, discuss issues of the community. Make ourselves relevant. We can do it, if we wanted to—this may be our last chance.
GOP confronts big trouble in Little Saigon
The Republican Party is struggling to win over Asian American voters — including Vietnamese Americans, who were once one of its most reliable constituencies.
By CATHERINE KIM, Politico, 8/24/21
WESTMINSTER, Calif. — Here in the heart of Orange County’s Little Saigon, home to the largest number of Vietnamese Americans outside of Vietnam, the GOP is quietly conducting an experiment that will go a long way toward determining the future of the party.
In a strip mall storefront off Bolsa Avenue, the Republican National Committee in June opened its first Asian Pacific American community center, designed to organize, recruit and train AAPI volunteers, in addition to providing a gathering place for local grassroots activists.
The idea is to use the center to build the GOP’s ground game, but that’s only part of what’s happening here. People who identify as Asian are the fastest-growing racial group in the nation, according to recently released Census figures, and the Republican Party is floundering in its attempts to win them over.
In 2016, Hillary Clinton defeated Donald Trump by 69 percent to 25 percent among AAPI voters nationally. Trump ran ahead of that pace in 2020 but still lost by a landslide margin — 61 percent to 34 percent, according to exit polls. In California, the result was even worse: Joe Biden won 3 out of every 4 Asian voters.
Even in Orange County, among the Vietnamese American voters who have long been a part of the Republican coalition, the GOP has been losing ground. After an election year in which AAPI voters turned out across the nation in record numbers, there is greater urgency than ever for the party to rethink its approach.
“The only way to grow the base of the GOP is by sticking with the core issues, running on the issues that would make the GOP an attractive party for hardworking immigrants, and not so much rally around a cult personality,” said Tyler Diep, a former Republican assemblyman from Orange County. “And I think that if the party can ever get to that state again, then it can be competitive nationwide. But if not, then I’m not sure how successful we can be as a party in the long run with the AAPI community.”
On a recent Tuesday afternoon, with the Sept. 14California governor recall election fast approaching, more than 20 people gathered in the newly opened community center for Asian American outreach training.
Amid walls lined with images from the neighborhood — like the iconic Asian Garden Mall and its ornate welcome arches — and headshots of RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel and newly elected Korean American Reps. Young Kim and Michelle Steele, organizers coached the participants on best practices.
When one volunteer specifically asks for guidance in Vietnamese to engage with the many conservative Vietnamese voters in her community, the organizers nod enthusiastically as they promise further assistance.
“The RNC has operated a permanent, data-driven ground game since 2016. We remain in communities year-round to continue building relationships to turn out for Republican candidates,” said RNC spokesperson Keith Schipper. “Following our massive success with Asian Pacific American voters in 2020, we are investing more than ever to grow our support within the community to deliver victories for Republicans up and down the ballot.”
The approach is a step in the right direction, said Republican Assemblymember Janet Nguyen, who represents Westminster.
Nguyen points out that, unlike her own party, local Democratic Party offices have multiple full-time Vietnamese American staffers to engage with voters year-round. Republicans are also behind when it comes to investing in Vietnamese-language media. In the past, the Orange County Democratic Party has launched radio shows on Little Saigon Radio with the Vietnamese American Democratic Club, a grassroots organization that also broadcasts its own TV shows discussing key issues.
“The Democratic Party that I’ve seen throughout the years is, they know this is not a place for them to even bother. But they still make the effort, they still go out there,” she said. “[Democrats are] that friendly face that’s always out there and always shown that, ‘Hey, we’re here for you to talk about issues.’ [Voters] don’t get to hear what the Republican Party stands for, or be reminded what we stand for. So that’s why people are moving away.”
The victories of Steele and Young in 2020 provide a playbook for victory among Asian American voters, said California GOP Chair Jessica Millan Patterson, but they will have to keep the early and active engagement ongoing with voters if they want continued success.
“We can’t walk away from that. This is something that has to happen year round for us to be successful long term,” she said. “California Democrats have done this for a very long time. They have shown up in communities, and they’ve made people feel like they care about their problems.”
Vietnamese American voters are still one of the only ethnicities within the Asian American community to have a larger number of registered Republicans over Democrats. But it may not remain that way for long: Republican registration numbers for Vietnamese Americans in Orange County have slowly been dwindling since the 1990s.
One of the most obvious reasons for the dwindling support is a generational gap in party identification. First-generation Vietnamese American voters were attracted to the GOP’s strong stance against communism when they migrated, said Westminster Mayor Tri Ta, and conservatives’ fight against socialism continues to stoke their support. But in the span of the nine years since he was first elected Vietnamese American mayor in the country, Tra says he has seen a notable change in the approach to politics of younger Vietnamese American voters.
The numbers bear it out. Among those who registered with a major political party, roughly 68 percent of Orange County Vietnamese American voters 50 and older were registered as Republicans on Election Day last year, according to figures from Political Data Inc., a voter data firm used by both parties in California. But more than 65 percent of those 49 and under were registered as Democrats.
Tra said the RNC community center needed a full-time, year-round Vietnamese American cultural ambassador who can help bridge the language and cultural barriers that prevent people from civic participation. Tailored outreach in the mother tongue is essential to capturing the attention of Asian American voters in general, he pointed out: Nationally, 57 percent of the Asian American population was born in another country, and the group has the highest rates of limited English proficiency at 34 percent.
“At the end of the day, I think the Vietnamese American voters, they need to feel really comfortable [to] realize that their voice is recognized in the party,” Ta said. And a cultural ambassador “needs to understand the Vietnamese culture, understand the Vietnamese habits, needs to understand the language, understand everything about the Vietnamese.”
At the community center, RNC volunteer Jacqueline Le said she is among those trying to bridge the cultural and language divide by reaching out to voters via Vietnamese-language media, which is often more widely consumed than English mainstream news sources. She said she pitches in by sending information about Republican campaign events to these outlets, because “from my experience, the elder people listen to a lot of the Vietnamese radio, Vietnamese TV stations.”
Local Republicans here take some solace in the fact that, while the GOP isn’t as attractive as it once was to many Vietnamese Americans — in part because the second and third generations are more liberal and have no memory of Vietnam’s communist regime — those voters have become independents, rather than Democrats.
It’s people like Danny Zheong, 42, a Vietnamese immigrant who works at an herbs and cosmetics shop in Little Saigon. As his boss watches a Vietnamese Youtube video of the news while tucked behind towers of local teas and snail essence creams, Zheong says he doesn’t like talking about current events. Like many of the shop workers in the Hanoi Plaza, where South Vietnam and U.S. flags fly side-by-side, he considers himself apolitical, doesn’t identify with a party and is willing to give a chance to whichever candidate can boost the economy.
He voted for Biden last year, but it was more of a vote against Trump, Zheong said. It doesn’t mean his vote will go to the Democratic candidate next year in the midterm elections, which he hasn’t given much thought to.
Fostering a welcoming community for voters like Zheong — who have no allegiance to a party — is vital to the party’s future success in places like Little Saigon, said Nguyen.
“I think we need to remember that these voter bases are ours,” she said. “It’s only ours to lose, and for [Democrats] to gain.”
