Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama holds a significant lead over Republican candidate John McCain among Asian voters, according to a national survey conducted by UC Riverside and other schools.
But a third of Asian voters remain undecided, making the group a potentially decisive demographic in the race for the White House, the poll found.
Asian-American likely voters favor Sen. Obama, D-Ill, by a 41 to 24 percent margin over Sen. McCain, R-Ariz., according to the National Asian American Survey, produced by UCR, USC, UC Berkeley and Rutgers University. But with 34 percent of voters still undecided, the fast growing Asian-American population could prove pivotal next month.
"With such a high proportion of undecided voters, Asian Americans are a critical source of potential votes for either candidate in the final weeks of the campaign," said Karthick Ramakrishnan, an associate political science professor at UCR.
Most Asian ethnic groups lean toward Democrats over Republicans, with the notable exception of Vietnamese Americans, who heavily favor Republicans, the survey found.
Researchers said Vietnamese voters, like Cuban Americans, relate most closely with the more explicitly anti-communist GOP message.
While Vietnamese voters overwhelmingly favor McCain, each of six other Asian ethnic groups - Asian Indians, Chinese, Filipino, Japanese, Korean and "other Asian" - are leaning toward Obama, the survey found.
Ramakrishnan and other researchers involved with the study unveiled their findings Monday at the National Press Club in Washington. Specific California data will be made public later this month.
The survey of 4,394 Asian American adults was conducted by phone between Aug. 18 and Sept. 26. The margin of error is plus or minus 1.5 percentage points.
http://www.pe.com/localnews/inland/stories/PE_News_Local_S_asian07.330a727.htmlI've seen at least 3 articles about this survey today.