Asian American and Pacific Islander voters are entering the 2026 midterms with growing political influence, but their participation remains shaped by wide differences in language, immigration history, age, geography and political affiliation. New polling shows intense concern about affordability and immigration enforcement, while organizers say many voters still receive little direct campaign outreach.
At the same time, changing voting rules, language barriers and misinformation can make participation more difficult, particularly for first-time voters and immigrant communities. The result is an electorate that is growing quickly but cannot be understood as a single political bloc.
In a media briefing on October 16 hosted by American Community Media, a panel of experts discussed new AAPI voter data, outreach to low-propensity and younger voters, voting barriers and organizing efforts in closely contested states.
AAPI Data estimates there are roughly 16 million eligible AAPI voters in 2026, including 1.6 million who became newly eligible since 2022. Its latest voter survey found that 90% of registered AAPI voters say they plan to participate in the midterms, although intention does not necessarily translate directly into turnout. AAPI Data
Speakers:
• Christine Chen, Executive Director, APIA Vote
• Mary Lou Akai Ferguson, Executive Director, Asian American Power Network
• Shekar Narasimhan, Chairman, AAPI Victory Fund
• Karthick Ramakrishnan, Founder and Director, AAPI Data
A fast-growing electorate that resists simple labels
Karthick Ramakrishnan said one of the central challenges in covering AAPI voters is recognizing how much diversity exists within the category itself.
Differences in language, economic conditions, immigration history and national origin can produce dramatically different political experiences.
“When people think about immigrant communities, they think about Latinos,” Ramakrishnan said. “But the key fact remains Asians are the only major racial group where you have the majority, in fact, the vast majority of our community are foreign born.”
Language access remains a particularly important issue. Ramakrishnan said Asian Americans have significant levels of limited English proficiency, which can affect access to political information and voting resources.
Economic anxiety also stretches well beyond households formally classified as poor.
AAPI Data’s 2026 survey found that cost of living and inflation were the dominant electoral concerns, with 90% of Asian American respondents and 89% of Pacific Islander respondents saying the issue was very or extremely important to their vote. AAPI Data
Ramakrishnan said groceries, healthcare and housing repeatedly emerge as concerns across the community.
“These are not just people who are under the federal poverty line,” he said. “There’s a much larger population worried about cost of living.”
Immigration enforcement is also influencing behavior. Ramakrishnan said survey data found that 41% of Asian American and Pacific Islander adults either personally began carrying immigration-related documents or knew someone who had. Among South Asian respondents, that figure was higher.
He also said support within AAPI communities for deporting all undocumented immigrants has declined from levels measured shortly after the 2024 presidential election.
The larger lesson, he said, is that political attitudes are not static and should not be inferred from a single election.
High interest does not guarantee turnout
The 2026 AAPI Voter Survey found that 90% of registered AAPI voters say they intend to vote. AAPI Data’s published results show 71% saying they are absolutely certain they will participate. AAPI Data
Ramakrishnan cautioned that even strong intentions should not be treated as a turnout forecast.
“There is a difference between intention and reality,” he said.
Younger voters are one area of particular uncertainty.
Midterm participation tends to be lower among younger Americans generally, and Ramakrishnan said younger AAPI voters also report somewhat lower certainty about voting than older voters.
Yet the electorate has demonstrated the ability to increase participation sharply. AAPI Data reports that Asian American midterm turnout rose from 27% in 2014 to 40% in 2018 and remained at roughly that level in 2022. Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander turnout similarly rose from 37% to 43% between 2014 and 2018 before registering about 41% in 2022. AAPI Data
Whether 2026 produces another surge, Ramakrishnan said, will depend partly on whether voters can overcome practical barriers and whether political organizations continue reaching them.
Campaign contact remains uneven
Despite the community’s growth, significant numbers of AAPI voters report receiving no direct contact from either major party.
According to the 2026 voter survey, 42% said they had received no contact from the Democratic Party, while 58% reported no Republican Party contact. Community organizations reached approximately the same share of AAPI adults as Democratic organizations, according to the survey. AAPI Data
That gap creates a larger role for local organizations.
Mary Lou Akai Ferguson said the Asian American Power Network works through community groups in competitive states, where organizers conduct door knocking, phone banking, mail and other forms of voter contact.
As of the day before the discussion, Ferguson said network organizations had knocked on approximately 450,000 doors and completed more than 85,000 phone conversations with Asian American voters.
But she said the broader voter-engagement ecosystem is operating with significantly less funding than in previous election cycles.
“The funding is much, much lower this year than in any past cycle we’ve seen,” Ferguson said.
The consequences, she said, are often felt months before an election.
Programs designed to reach voters early — particularly younger or inconsistent voters — can be among the first to disappear when funding arrives late or not at all.
Ferguson prefers describing those voters as “unreached” rather than simply low-propensity.
“What that really tells me is this voter is not necessarily bought into the importance of showing up to vote,” she said.
For immigrant communities in particular, understanding how elections connect to everyday policy outcomes may require sustained conversations rather than a wave of advertising immediately before Election Day.
Meeting voters where they are
Ferguson described organizing programs that begin with community relationships rather than campaign slogans.
In Georgia, groups have hosted “Chai and Chat” gatherings in coffee shops and tea houses, creating informal spaces where residents can ask basic questions about government, elections and policy without feeling judged.
“We know that our wallets are strained right now, but we don’t automatically all know that the Public Service Commission race in Georgia is going to have a huge impact on the cost of our utilities,” Ferguson said.
Those conversations help connect broad concerns such as affordability to specific offices and elections.
Organizations have also experimented with local social media creators who already have credibility with younger audiences.
Rather than paying an influencer to post a last-minute voting message, Ferguson said the more effective model begins months earlier by educating creators about policy and allowing them to communicate in their own voices.
Funding limitations forced some of those programs to be scaled back this year.
“It’s not enough to just show up to communities in October, put a bunch of ads on TV and say, ‘Yeah, go vote,’” Ferguson said.
Battleground-state organizing
Shekar Narasimhan said the political attention paid to AAPI communities has changed considerably over the past decade.
Ten years ago, he said, campaigns rarely contacted his organization seeking advice on reaching Asian American voters. Today, campaigns in states such as Virginia regularly employ AAPI outreach staff and ask how to communicate across languages, communities and cultural institutions.
“Do not take our community for granted or any segment of it,” Narasimhan said. “It is changing, it is growing, it is getting younger.”
The AAPI Victory Fund has focused its resources this year on selected states where relatively small shifts in participation could matter significantly, including Alaska, Georgia, Michigan and Texas.
Narasimhan used Alaska to illustrate the strategy. The state has a comparatively small overall electorate but a substantial Asian American and Pacific Islander population, including Filipino communities concentrated in places such as Kodiak and Ketchikan.
The goal, he said, is not to treat the entire AAPI population as interchangeable, but to understand specific communities and how campaigns can reach them.
Michigan has become another major focus.
Ferguson said early voting data there already showed tens of thousands of Asian American ballots cast, including voters who did not participate in the 2022 midterms. She cautioned that it was still too early to draw broader conclusions from those numbers.
Narasimhan also emphasized that political representation should not be reduced to whether a candidate simply shares a voter’s ethnicity.
Representation can matter, he said, but voters still evaluate ideology, party and policy.
Ramakrishnan agreed, noting that research shows shared ethnicity can increase interest or political donations, but partisan identity and deeply held values continue to shape vote choice.
“You’re not gonna see much crossover interest based on the shared ethnicity,” he said, particularly in a highly polarized political environment.
Changing election rules create new barriers
Christine Chen said growing political interest does not eliminate structural obstacles to voting.
APIA Vote works with organizations across dozens of states to provide translated election information and help voters understand registration and ballot rules.
Chen said the voting landscape has become more complicated as states change identification standards, mail voting requirements, polling locations and early-voting rules.
“In recent years, some states have made voting more difficult by narrowing identification options, restricting mail voting and drop boxes, shortening ballot deadlines, changing registration procedures and limiting assistance or early voting opportunities,” she said.
She pointed to students as one example, noting that changes to acceptable voter identification can particularly affect young people attending college away from home.
Mail-ballot restrictions can also matter disproportionately to AAPI voters because many prefer voting before Election Day or by mail.
The 2026 AAPI Voter Survey found 45% preferred voting in person, while 34% preferred mail and another 15% preferred ballot drop-off. AAPI Data
Chen said organizations therefore need to educate even experienced voters because procedures may have changed since the last election.
Fear and misinformation
Election misinformation presents a separate challenge.
Chen said public discussion about immigration enforcement at polling places, citizenship verification and mail voting can generate uncertainty even when proposed policies do not ultimately take effect.
“The narrative is out there,” she said.
That creates an additional burden for community organizations and ethnic media to explain what rules actually apply.
She urged voters to confirm their registrations and understand provisional-ballot procedures in case their names do not appear on voter rolls.
APIA Vote and its partners have distributed translated election information to more than one million households, Chen said, in addition to offering multilingual phone assistance and outreach through calls, texts, digital advertisements and door knocking.
“For young voters, our elders can play a role,” she added.
Chen described voting in her own family as a tradition: relatives took her to vote when she turned 18 and then went out to eat together afterward.
Similar family engagement, she said, can help younger voters navigate ballot requirements and connect participation to community life.
Trust remains local
One recurring theme across the discussion was the importance of trusted messengers.
AAPI Data’s 2026 survey found family and friends among the most trusted sources of information, followed closely by academic experts. Community journalists and AAPI-serving organizations also registered substantial trust, while Pacific Islander respondents showed particularly strong trust in community organizations. AAPI Data
That trust becomes particularly important in an electorate spanning numerous languages and communities.
Ferguson said organizers cannot assume that “affordability” means the same thing everywhere.
For a technology worker in Michigan, the issue may look different than it does for a Filipino casino worker in Nevada.
Without organizers embedded in those communities, she said, campaigns may know the headline concern but not the context behind it.
Engagement continues after Election Day
Speakers also cautioned that voter outreach cannot stop once polls close.
Ferguson said misinformation can intensify while ballots are still being counted, particularly in states where final results take days or weeks.
Ramakrishnan similarly warned that election administration could become the subject of false claims after Nov. 3.
For community journalists, he said, repetition matters.
“People need six or seven touch points before you close the sale,” Ramakrishnan said, drawing an analogy to consumer behavior.
Election information that appears repetitive to reporters may still be reaching voters for the first time.
“Don’t feel like, ‘Oh, the story’s already run. We can’t run it again,’” he said. “Repetition makes a huge difference.”
That may prove especially consequential for an electorate whose political footprint continues to expand but whose voters still face uneven campaign outreach, shifting rules and language barriers.
The question heading toward Nov. 3 is not simply how AAPI voters will divide politically. It is whether campaigns, community groups and election systems can reach a heterogeneous electorate whose growing numbers have made its participation increasingly significant.
All images courtesy of American Community Media