Exit poll: Majority of Fil-ams voted for Obama

President Barack Obama smiles after delivering his victory speech to supporters gathered in Chicago early Wednesday Nov. 7 2012. AP/Jerome Delay

SAN FRANCISCO–Contrary to pre-election projections that most Filipino Americans were going to vote Republican last November, a multi-state exit poll found that the majority of Filipino American voters instead chose President Barack Obama over Republican Mitt Romney.

A nonpartisan multilingual exit poll of 9,096 Asian American voters in 14 states conducted by the Asian American Legal Defense Fund in the November 2012 Presidential Elections found that 65 percent of Filipino Americans voters went for Obama.

In the Presidential Election, three-quarters (77 percent) of Asian Americans polled voted for Obama for President and 21 percent voted for Mitt Romney. Support for each candidate varied by ethnic group, with a high of 54 percent of Vietnamese Americans voting for Romney, compared with only 3 percent of Bangladeshi Americans.

Largest poll of its kind

The survey was the largest survey of its kind in the nation. AALDEF, a 39-year old New York-based national organization, polled Asian American voters in 37 cities across 14 states on Election Day: New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Maryland, Michigan, Illinois, Georgia, Louisiana, Florida, Texas, Nevada, California, and Washington, D.C.

Glenn Magpantay, AALDEF Democracy Program Director, presented the results of the 2012 multilingual exit poll in Washington, DC. Key findings include the following:

Three-quarters (77 percent) of Asian Americans polled voted for Obama for President and 21 percent voted for Mitt Romney.
Support for each candidate varied by ethnic group, with a high of 54 percent of Vietnamese Americans voting for Romney, compared to 3 percent of Bangladeshi Americans.
The percentage of Asian Americans who voted for Obama by ethnic group are as follows (from highest to lowest): Bangladeshi American (96 percent); Pakistani American (91 percent); Indian American (84 percent); Chinese American (81 percent); Korean American (78 percent); Filipino American (65 percent); and Vietnamese American (44 percent).
Younger Asian voters preferred Obama
In addition, only ten percent of Asian Americans under 30 voted for Romney, compared with 16 percent of Asian Americans between 30-39; 26 percent of Asian Americans between 40-49; 26 percent between 50-59 percent; and 27 percent between 60-69.
Nearly four out of five (79 percent) of Asian Americans polled were foreign-born naturalized U.S. citizens. 10 percent became citizens within the past 2 years; 45 percent became citizens more than 10 years ago. More than a quarter (27 percent) of those polled said that they voted for the first time in the 2012 Presidential Elections.