Former president Donald Trump sparked a furor this week after claiming Vice President Kamala Harris had only promoted her Indian heritage until more recently.
“She was always of Indian heritage, and she was only promoting Indian heritage,” he said before a gathering of Black journalists. “I didn’t know she was Black until a number of years ago, when she happened to turn Black, and now she wants to be known as Black. So I don’t know, is she Indian or is she Black?”
Harris dismissed Trump’s comments as the “same old show” of divisiveness and distract. The daughter of a Jamaican father and Indian mother, she has long self-identified as both Asian and Black.
She has made history as the first Black and South Asian person to serve as vice president and is set to soon become the first woman of color to top a major party’s presidential ticket. Her ascent after President Joe Biden quit the race may have energized Indian American voters—a group that could prove pivotal in November’s election, experts told Newsweek.
Mobilizing Key Battlegrounds
Last week, a group called South Asian Women for Harris organized a call that more than 4,000 women joined, The Associated Press reported. More than $250,000 was raised over about two hours and the panelists included actress Mindy Kaling and Democratic Rep. Pramila Jayapal, one of five Indian Americans in Congress.
Americans of Indian descent are the largest population among Asian Americans, according to data from the 2020 U.S. Census. Battleground states like Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and Michigan have large Indian American communities that could help propel Harris to the White House if they turn out for her on election day.
The Harris campaign has been contacted for comment via email.
Research by Sara Sadhwani, an assistant professor of politics at Pomona College specializing in Asian American and Latino voting behavior, found Indian Americans mobilize based on shared identity more than any other Asian American subgroup.
Almost six in 10 Indian Americans said they would vote for an Indian American running for office in her survey for the paper published in May 2020.
“In other words, Indian Americans would feel they would be better represented when more Indians who understand their unique political, cultural, and economic interests, are elected to office,” Sadhwani told Newsweek. “In a study on mobilization, I find Indian Americans more than any other racial or ethnic group exhibit a large mobilization effect when an Indian American is on the ballot.”
She noted that the Biden-Harris ticket in 2020 won Georgia by about 12,000 votes. “There are approximately 100,000 Indian Americans eligible to vote in the state and they—along with the historic Black communities of Georgia and a fast growing Latino community—could be the margin of difference,” Sadhwani said.
Can Kamala Harris Capitalize?
However, a shared identity does not mean Harris will not have to put in some work to court Indian American voters.
“Voters are interested in candidates who share their background or identity, but candidates cannot rely on that to bring people to the voting booths,” Pawan Dhingra, a professor at Amherst College and former president of the Association for Asian American Studies, told Newsweek.
Harris “needs to demonstrate that beyond references to coconut trees (which are wonderful, to be clear), she understands the issues that Indian Americans and other Asian Americans have. By connecting her identity to her policy positions, she can more effectively excite people to vote for her.”
Since Asian Americans tend to vote Democrat, Harris “is in a good position to capitalize on such a base of support,” Dhingra added. “Still, she needs to do more. She needs to articulate how her vision for progress will impact Asian Americans, including on both domestic and international issues. So, there is work to be done on her part to turn this excitement into actual votes.”
Still, Sadhwani believes Harris’ embrace of her Indian heritage will mean Indian American voters are more likely to cast ballots for her in November.
“Indian Americans want to be seen and heard in American politics—and this 2024 cycle has seen legitimate Indian American candidates in both parties,” she said.
“The difference is that Kamala has owned both of her identities as a Black woman and as an Indian American woman,” she said, while adding that Nikki Haley, the former United Nations ambassador who dropped out of the race for the Republican nomination earlier this year, has appeared to distance herself from her Indian heritage.
Last year, Harris spoke of her connection to India at a luncheon for Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
“When my sister Maya and I were growing up, our mother would take us from the Bay Area to India pretty much every other year,” she said. “And the purpose of those trips were many, including that we would well understand where she came from, what produced her; so that we could spend time with our grandparents, with my uncle and our chittis [aunties]; and to really understand the love of good idli [savory rice cakes].”
Sadhwani noted how Harris also expressed pride in her Indian heritage when she addressed the Democratic National Convention in 2020, and when she made masala dosas with Kaling at her home while campaigning in 2019.
“They cooked with spices kept in old coffee jars,” she said. “These are cultural references that every Indian American and many Asian Americans could relate to– that familial ties and traditions are respected and maintained.”
Voting for Harris, she said, “will satisfy for the majority of Indians, both their partisan preferences and their desire to see more Indians elected to office.”