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What Tom Suozzi's victory can teach NY Dems about reaching out to Asian American voters
By
Brigid Bergin
Published Feb 23, 2024
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Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images
By
Brigid Bergin
Published Feb 23, 2024
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Democrat Tom Suozzi focused on building support among Asian Americans in his campaign to replace ousted Rep. George Santos, and strategists say his campaign's success offers a blueprint for other candidates in upcoming competitive elections who need to reach the growing and diverse population.
Asian American voters make up more than 20% of the voting population in the 3rd Congressional District spanning eastern Queens and Nassau County — a crucial mass of votes in a race that was always expected to be tight. Suozzi beat Republican nominee Mazi Pilip by an 8-point margin.
His campaign invested time and resources to communicate with the district’s diverse population of Asian Americans, who make up the fastest-growing demographic in the city, state and the nation. While it may not be surprising that a more targeted approach to different ethnic communities yielded better results for Suozzi, that strategy hasn't often been part of state Democrats' campaign playbook. But it became essential in combating a recent rightward shift among Asian American voters in recent elections.
“The tactics are not rocket science,” said Rep. Grace Meng, who represents the neighboring 6th Congressional District in Queens. She was a leading surrogate for Suozzi and helped reach out to Chinese and Korean voters in his district. Meng said the difference with the Suozzi campaign was his commitment to a high level of “authentic outreach.”
After Democrats' success in this special election, Meng said the Suozzi campaign’s investment should now be considered the baseline in New York, where several congressional races are expected to be battlegrounds as Republicans hold a razor-thin House majority.
“It’s not just a one-time appearance at an event,” said Meng, who noted that many Asian American voters are either first-time or relatively new voters. “There needs to be a lot of engagement and even conversations about why it’s important to participate in the civic process at all.”
In the compressed three-month special election cycle, Meng said she regularly joined Suozzi once or twice a week in what started as small-scale events at dim sum restaurants, houses of worship and people’s homes.
In time, those events grew.
“I remember towards the end there were even waitlists because we couldn’t fit that many people, but they too wanted to be part of a meet and greet with Tom Suozzi,” said Meng, who became the first Asian American from New York elected to Congress in 2012 and was elected vice chair of Democratic National Committee in 2016.
Suozzi’s campaign hired two dedicated staff members focused on outreach to Asian American and Pacific Islander communities; recruited large numbers of volunteers who were encouraged to campaign in ways that would be most effective for their communities; and produced multilingual campaign literature, mail and text messages, according to a campaign adviser.
Meng said this campaign strategy of making meaningful investments in outreach to different ethnic communities is not new across the country. She said she saw versions of it used in states including Nevada, Georgia, Iowa and Montana.
Polls show political candidates could do much more to reach diverse Asian American communities. Asian American voters in the 3rd Congressional District are mostly split between East Asian voters — primarily Chinese and Korean Americans — and South Asian voters from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh.
A survey conducted in 2022 by Asian and Pacific Islander American Vote, a nonpartisan nonprofit organization focused on cultivating civic engagement in Asian American and Pacific Islander communities, found more than half of Asian American voters said they’d never been contacted directly by either political party.
“AAPI voters are swing voters, and they need to see early and consistent outreach on all fronts,” said Linh Nguyen, executive vice president of the AAPI Victory Fund, a political action committee that supports AAPI engagement.
A New York Times analysis last year found Asian American voters in New York increasingly cast their votes for Republican gubernatorial candidates from 2018 to 2022, when GOP nominee Lee Zeldin emphasized a tough-on-crime message. Public safety continues to be a top concern among Asian American voters, particularly amid a rise in anti-Asian hate crimes in the wake of the pandemic.
“Messaging is important, and so is delivery," Nguyen said. "It's ethnic media, in-language translations, door knocking, the whole gambit. But we also can't be afraid to throw punches where it matters."
That was part of the reason her PAC hired Trip Yang Strategies, a New York-based political consulting firm, to push to get out the vote among another slice of the Asian American electorate in the district. The group targeted 40,000 Muslim, South Asian and Arab American voters in four languages: English, Hindi, Urdu and Arabic. And the firm did the outreach through newspaper ads, text messaging, paid live calls, robocalls and two mailers that attacked Pilip, the Republican candidate.
“There certainly was not this type of investment in 2022 in Asian American voters really across the state of New York,” said Trip Yang, a Democratic strategist and the firm’s founder.
He said once campaigns understand the need to engage with the complexity of the Asian American electorate, they will also see the value in hiring Asian American political professionals to do this type of multilingual work to connect with voters.
One of the firm's strategies was recording a robocall in Hindi and English from City Councilmember Shekar Krishnan, the first Indian American elected to the New York City Council, and sending it to Indian voters in the 3rd Congressional District.
Krishnan, a Democrat who represents Jackson Heights and Elmhurst, said that in order for his party to retake the U.S. House next November, Democrats needed to win this special election to show how they could succeed in more moderate districts.
“I think Suozzi’s election really showed why Asian American voters matter and that we cannot be taken for granted,” he said.
As Suozzi prepares to be sworn in to his seat on Feb. 28, candidates in nearby districts are drawing lessons from his campaign.
State Sen. Kevin Thomas of Nassau County is planning to run for the Democratic nomination in the 4th Congressional District, currently represented by Republican Rep. Anthony D’Esposito. Thomas' state Senate district runs from Westbury and Mineola to Nassau County's South Shore, covering roughly half of the 4th Congressional District.
He became the first South Asian elected to the New York State Senate in 2018. His re-election in 2020 came after absentee ballots were counted and he made a comeback after trailing in the results on Election Day.
Thomas said his outreach to the South Asian community was crucial in that race, even as outside money poured into it.
“The South Asian population in my district came out, both Republicans and Democrats,” he said, because those voters identified with him and saw he was able to deliver for them.
Reflecting on the special election, Thomas said Asian American voters knew Suozzi from his three decades in politics and his record of delivering for them in the past. Thomas also credited people like Meng for helping the campaign energize Asian American voters in Queens and Nassau County.
Asian American voters make up a smaller proportion of the 4th Congressional District where Thomas is running. Still, when races are decided by single-digit margins, every vote is crucial.
“It's just about mobilizing them,” Thomas said, adding the district’s Asian American voters are predominantly South Asian. “And making sure that you speak their language and you are out there with any and all types of outreach.”
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Brigid Bergin
Brigid Bergin is an award-winning senior reporter on the People and Power desk. She is fiercely committed to telling stories that help people engage and support democracy. In 2022, she hosted a live, ten-week call-in politics show ahead of the midterm elections called The People's Guide to Power. Brigid's reporting in 2017 included some of the first coverage of a political newcomer now known as AOC. In 2016, she broke the news of a voter purge in Brooklyn just days before New York’s presidential primary, triggering city, state and federal investigations. Brigid also guest hosts The Brian Lehrer Show and All Of It. She graduated from the University at Albany and the CUNY Newmark School of Journalism. Got a tip? Email [email protected] or Signal 917-723-4719.
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