GOP leaders courting the Indian-American vote

As Republican leaders continue to focus on diversifying the party’s ranks, a prominent Indian-American businessman from Chicago has launched a new effort to share Republican values with members of his own community.

As The Hill reports:

The Republican Hindu Coalition (RHC) held its public launch at the Hyatt Regency on Capitol Hill, gathering McConnell and Sens. Rob Portman (R-Ohio), Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.) and Ron Johnson (R-Wis.).

The RHC’s founder, Chicago-based businessman Shalabh “Shalli” Kumar, has promised to personally donate at least $2 million to Republicans running for office in 2016, and the coalition aims to give at least $10 million to GOP candidates this cycle.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, the honorary chairman of the RHC, entered the ballroom with Kumar.

“I think launching an organization like the RHC could literally change history,” Gingrich told the audience.

These efforts are vital to Republicans nationally and locally, particularly in Virginia’s closest races.

The Indian-American community has traditionally strongly favored Democrats. Polling data from 2012 shows Indian-Americans supporting President Obama’s re-election by a margin of 3:1.

According to Census data, Virginia is home to over 107,000 Indian-Americans, which constitute 1.3% of the total population. Among the 5.7% of residents identifying as Asian-American, Indian-Americans constituted the largest subgroup, at 22.8% of the Asian-American population.

This community is heavily concentrated in a handful of localities. Collectively, the top ten localities containing the largest numbers of Indian-Americans are home to 88.4% of Virginia’s total Indian-American population. Although Indian-Americans constitute 2% or more of the total population in only five localities, four are located in Northern Virginia, which itself is home to 74.2% of the Commonwealth’s Indian-Americans.

Outside Northern Virginia, Henrico County is home to nearly ten thousand Indian-Americans, representing 90.3% of Indian-Americans in the Richmond metropolitan area.

From a strategic perspective, community concentration has permitted the growth of local and cohesive networks of Indian-American residents, brought together for fellowship, celebration, worship, and business. Community institutions exist where the population is high, allowing campaigns to engage this demographic through dialogue with community leaders, participation in events, and visits to community institutions, some of which host explicitly political events.

Evidence suggests that, through effective party-building efforts, more Indian-Americans can be persuaded to vote Republican, if the party can build an effective conduit to communicate its message and its values.

As a whole, Virginia’s Indian-American community is well-educated, prosperous, and family-oriented, presenting Republicans with an opportunity to win votes by communicating a mainstream message focused on growth, opportunity, prosperity, and a better, more efficient government.

47.3% of Virginia’s Indian-Americans 25 and older hold a graduate or professional degree, while 81.5% hold a bachelor’s degree or higher, compared to 14.8% and 35.5% of all Virginians, respectively – yielding educational attainment spreads between Indian-Americans and Virginians as a whole of +32.5% and +46.0%, respectively.

This strong overperformance in educational attainment has resulted in great prosperity throughout the community at large. Indian-Americans in Virginia enjoy a median household income of $124,124 in 2013 dollars – nearly double Virginia’s median household income of $63,056.

Consequently, only 4.1% of Indian-Americans in Virginia live in poverty, compared to 11.7% of Virginians as a whole. Within this community, reliance on cash benefits, food stamps, and other public assistance remains relatively low, while effective tax brackets remain high.

While the factors underlying the statistically-evident economic overperformance of Indian-Americans in Virginia are varied, common themes of strong families, a high value placed upon education, a strong work ethic, and high rates of entrepreneurship contribute to the community’s overall success – and offer natural inroads for Republicans to realize electoral gains.

Existing Republican efforts to earn support from Indian-Americans in Virginia are mixed, at best, although one example of success can serve as a model for efforts elsewhere.

In Henrico County, the efforts of two leaders in particular have proven invaluable in building support for Republicans within the Indian-American community.

Dr. Surya Dhakar is a local dentist, former Republican candidate for school board, and two-time president of the India Association of Virginia, who, along with Sanjay Mittal, the Vice Chairman of the Henrico County Republican Committee, has been at the forefront of winning votes for Republicans within the local community.

Along with the help of other leaders, their model for engagement has transcended mere “outreach” to focus on true inclusion and engagement, helping to involve the community in the political process by routinely disseminating information, bringing forth concerns, and participating in party politics – even in Republican conventions.

Although only 3.2% of Henrico County’s population is Indian-American, over 6% of its delegates to the 2013 Republican convention in Richmond were of Indian-American heritage – an impressive feat when one considers that this community traditionally supports Democrats by a 3:1 margin, and, in Henrico County, includes many non-naturalized immigrants unable to register to vote.

Virginia Republicans must be bold in their efforts to build support in communities which traditionally support Democrats by large margins. In this purple Commonwealth, base turnout alone is no longer sufficient for winning statewide.

The time to begin preparing for close elections in 2016 and 2017 is now. Leaders must understand that minority communities are not election-season photo opportunities; winning support requires making inroads, listening to concerns, and engaging leaders on an ongoing basis. Republican leaders must transcend mere “outreach” and aspire to political inclusion and lasting engagement.

At present, active coalition-building efforts from the state party are virtually nonexistent.

Nearly one year ago, Virginia Republicans were promised new party leadership with a focus on growing the ranks of Virginia Republicans. Despite these bold promises, leadership has not decisively acted on the party’s critical need for effective, active community engagement efforts.

Major, active coalitions focused on the largest groups – veterans, Hispanics, African-Americans, etc. – are nonexistent, despite these efforts requiring little more from the state party than a willingness to show leadership by empaneling organizers and delegating responsibilities.

An active, ongoing engagement effort by the state party focused on winning support from Indian-American voters would have been tremendously helpful to candidates such as Craig Parisot, who lost his closely-contested race in Fairfax and Loudoun Counties by a mere 188 votes.

When Republican candidates needed stronger support, the state party’s coalitions efforts were nowhere to be found.

Critical preparatory time slips away every passing day that this most easily delegable of tasks remains ignored. Virginia Republicans must hope party leadership soon recognizes the error of its ways in failing to empower a diverse slate of active and engaged coalitions.

In Virginia, Republicans wishing to win cannot ignore the Indian-American community. The message must be clear: Indian-Americans are welcome within the Republican Party of Virginia, for Republican ideas bring about broad and lasting opportunities, to the benefit of all those proud to call America home.

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