Vietnamese Americans have as a group historically voted in favor of Republican candidates and have self-identified as Republicans at a greater rate than other Asian American communities.  This is for a number of reasons, including because Vietnamese Americans perceived the GOP as being the more aggressively anti-communist of the two major American political parties, particularly during the Reagan era.  Given the historical circumstances which led to emigration by Vietnamese people to the United States, in many ways one can consider the Vietnamese American experience to be similar to that of another post-World War II immigrant population – the Cuban American community, and the voting tendencies between both groups are quite similar.

This voting tendency has not disappeared.  According to the National Asian American Survey (NAAS) entitled “Asian Americans and the 2008 Election” (which was conducted prior to the 2008 Presidential election), Vietnamese Americans were the only Asian American group that leaned more Republican than Democrat, and the polling in that survey showed strong support for John McCain over Barack Obama at a ratio of two to one.  The exit polling conducted during that election seems to support the pre-election polling cited above.  According to a report from the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF) entitled “The Asian American Vote in the 2008 Presidential Election“, Vietnamese Americans had the highest percentage of identification with the Republican Party among Asian American groups at 44%, with that number going over 50% in the states of Texas, Louisiana and Maryland. 

This exit poll report also stated that Vietnamese Americans voted in favor of John McCain over Barack Obama at a rate of 67% to 30%, a ratio which tracked the polling among decided voters in the pre-election report from the NAAS.  Vietnamese Americans were the only Asian American group to vote in favor of John McCain over Barack Obama in 2008.

It is therefore not surprising that the first Vietnamese American U.S. Congressman would be a Republican, Joseph Cao (R-Louisiana), or that other prominent Vietnamese American political and public policy figures, such as former Assistant Attorney General Viet Dinh or California State Assemblyman Van Tran would come primarily from the GOP.  All this having been said, it would be a mistake for Republicans to assume that Vietnamese Americans will remain overwhelmingly supportive of the GOP in the future.  This is because younger Vietnamese American voters and native-born Vietnamese American voters are trending towards the Democratic Party.

Read More – http://www.frumforum.com/gop-losing-vietnamese-american-voters