Author Date

2023-8

Degree Name

Department

Political Science

College

Family, Home, and Social Sciences

Defense Date

2023-07-20

Publication Date

2023-07-31

First Faculty Advisor

Dr. Jessica Preece

First Faculty Reader

Dr. Ethan Busby

Honors Coordinator

Dr. Darin Self

Keywords

voting, Asian American, COVID-19, party contact, group identity

Abstract

Many scholars have focused on what affects voter turnout rates among Black and Latinx voters, with some emphasis on party contacting. However, questions about what affects voter turnout in Asian Americans remain, especially when considering Asian American voter turnout peaked in 2020 despite being consistently low in previous elections. In this paper, I use ANES data from 2016 and 2020 to study the impact of party contacting and racial group identity on Asian American voter turnout. I conduct a series of logit regressions on self-reported voter turnout with party contacting and measures of racial group identity. I find that Asian Americans who were contacted by a political party and have a stronger sense of racial group identity were more likely to vote in 2016 and that Asian Americans who had the strongest and weakest sense of racial group identity regardless of party contacting were more likely to vote in 2020. This study raises questions on how the changing political and social context could affect voter turnout in different racial minorities.