The victory of Zohran Mamdani and other Indian-American candidates in the US elections could mean the return of the votes of some members of the diaspora, especially young people who switched their support to US President Donald Trump and the Republican Party in 2024, says Milan Vaishnau. Dr. Vaishnau — director of the South Asia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace — has researched Indian-American sentiment during a number of recent US elections and published articles on the topic, and says the shift may also be a backlash against the GOP/Make America Great Again (MAGA) anti-immigrant campaigns.
What does the ‘Momdani moment’ mean for the Indian diaspora? Just a year ago he polled only about 1% of voters, and now he’s the first Native American mayor of New York City?
Yes, you are right. A year ago he was polling in the 1%, and only very keen political pundits would have heard his name, and if they had, it was because of his famous parents, film director Mira Nair and academic Mahmud Mamdani. And to think that he once again became one of the most veteran politicians of the city and state and won in such incredible style. So what does this mean for the Indian-American community? Indian-American politicians are not necessarily connected to their core ethnic base of Indian and South Asian communities here, but Zohran Mamdani resonated with them. What’s so impressive is that he really created a cross-class, cross-racial, cross-ethnic coalition that was very unique.
It is also a reminder to people in India, and not least to the Indian government, that the Indian-American diaspora is very diverse. Many of us have these stereotypes about what the diaspora looks like. But really, over the generations, politically, in terms of their policies, in terms of their behavior, in terms of their influence … there’s a whole range of and can’t be taken for granted, and with all the political changes in the U.S., it’s really come to the fore.
Mr. Mamdani was one of three Democratic candidates from the diaspora, including Ghazala Hashmi, who won the lieutenant governorship of Virginia, and Aftab Purewal, re-elected mayor of Cincinnati. What do their victories mean for Native Americans who are concerned about MAGA’s (Republican) overwhelming anti-immigrant sentiment?
I think the three candidates you mentioned have two common themes. First, they all wore their identity as a badge of honor. They did not shy away from their identity, their culture, their religion. So I think it’s important at a time when, as you rightly point out, the Indian-American community is really feeling uneasy, threatened, even if you go by the language that we’re seeing online, certainly among MAGA fans. Second, they all focus on really basic bread and butter issues. They talked about availability. They talked about the crisis in health care. They talk about the cost of higher education, child care, kindergartens. I think many Americans are telling us in poll after poll that they care. And I think there’s a caveat for the GOP as well, specifically that identity-based attacks may not work with voters.
Where do Indians vote now – Democrats or Republicans?
This is an important question. In 2020, we conducted a first-of-its-kind national survey of Native Americans. And what we found is consistent with other studies of Asian Americans, that Native Americans supported the Democrats over the Republicans, about 70-20. In 2024, 70-20 went to 60-30, narrowing the gap significantly. Apparently, nearly two out of three Americans vote Democrat. But it sent a message that Indian-American votes could not be taken for granted.
Now, if you dig deeper and look at the people who voted for Mr. Trump, who may have voted for former US President Joe Biden, almost all of that shift in four years was young Indian-American men under the age of 40. Women haven’t changed, and older men haven’t. They were really young guys. Preliminary data show that many Indian-Americans switched to Mr. Mamdani during this New York mayoral race, suggesting that some of the votes for Mr. Trump may not have been deeply ideological, but they felt that Mr. Trump offered what the country needed at that particular moment.
Mr. Mamdani has been very critical of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government. Do you see these results changing the way the Indian government will interact with the diaspora?
First, when people vote, even in presidential elections, but certainly in local elections, they are really focused on local issues. So I think the US-India relationship, Mr. Mamdani’s views on Mr. Modi, what he might say is a fairly marginal factor in this election. But I think the second longer-term perspective is that I really think the Indian government and its interlocutors should invest in building relationships with a wide variety of people. They put a lot of eggs in the MAGA/Republican basket. And look at the backlash that Native Americans are facing [from the U.S, ruling party]. And so I hope that this election also prompts more reflection in terms of realizing that the Indian-American diaspora is not monolithic. Generations will surely change further and India needs to think about how to achieve widespread understanding [Indian-American] community.
