South Asians For Biden Mobilizes To Get Out Vote For Dem Ticket
India-West Staff Reporter
WASHINGTON, DC – Senior Biden-Harris campaign officials, South Asian Congressional Representatives, political and advocacy experts, and other elected leaders highlighted the issues at stake for the South Asian community this presidential election during its relaunch event on April 25.
“What’s at stake in 2024? Even though it has been said in the past, the 2024 presidential election will be the most consequential election in our nation’s history,” said Neha Dewan, Founder and Co-National Director of South Asians for Biden, during the relaunch event. “Our strategy is to protect our democracy, through a multi-pronged and comprehensive approach which includes investing in disaggregated voter lists, providing multilingual voter ID guides, and collaborating with AAPI and other coalition groups for effective outreach. Our strategy, which is rooted in grassroots and relational organizing, tackles disinformation through tailored communication campaigns.”
The 2024 launch included live and virtual components, with participation from Biden-Harris Administration officials, Congressional members, Democratic National Committee members, State Democratic Party chairs, and advocacy leaders.
“As the first South Asian American woman elected to the House of Representatives, and one of only two dozen naturalized citizens to serve in Congress, and one of less than a hundred women of color to ever serve in Congress, it is my distinct honor to join you today as we come together to build our power,” said Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal (WA-7), Chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.
In addition, national advocacy experts highlighted issues of importance to the South Asian community, including reproductive rights and gun violence prevention.
“Kamala Harris is the first South Asian to be elected Vice President, and she is a fierce champion for abortion rights,” said Mini Timmaraju, President and CEO, Reproductive Freedom for All. “I am proud to be a South Asian who supports abortion rights, and I am in great company, because our community cares deeply about reproductive freedom. Resources and findings from the organization South Asian SOAR revealed that 55 percent of Muslim Americans and 68 percent of Hindu Americans believe abortion should be legal in all or most cases.”
“I am so thrilled to be kicking off the 2024 election cycle with all of you, my friends, South Asians for Biden,” said Shikha Hamilton, Vice President of Organizing at Brady: United Against Gun Violence. “Thanks to all of you, by electing President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, we elected the most transformative leaders in the gun violence prevention movement in thirty years, and we need them to stay in the White House now more than ever.”
Wisconsin’s Attorney General Josh Kaul, Georgia State Senator Saira Draper, and Gen Z candidate for Georgia State Senate Ashwin Ramaswami also spoke on voting rights as an issue in the 2024 elections and for the future of the nation.
“The GOP [in Georgia] has made it harder and harder for regular folks to go and vote. Just recently, a handful of right-wing activists challenged nearly a 100,000 voter registrations and people are being taken off the rolls,” said Ramaswami. “Georgia’s recent voting law ended paperless absentee ballot requests and has made it much harder for people to get out to vote. Absentee ballots have gone down from 25 percent in 2020 to just 5 percent in recent elections.”
Speakers at the relaunch highlighted several accomplishments during President Biden and Vice President Harris’ historic first term in office, including The CHIPS and Science Act, The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, and The Inflation Reduction Act.
“We need to mobilize again. The President has delivered,” said Congressman Ro Khanna (CA-17). “There are so many South Asians involved in creating good jobs in Arizona, in upstate New York, in Ohio, because of that Act. And we’ve delivered on infrastructure, we’ve delivered on climate, we’ve delivered for public schools, we’re standing up for abortion rights, we’re standing up for voting rights.”
South Asians for Biden was formed in 2020 as a grassroots organization to mobilize South Asian voters nationwide to help elect President Biden and Vice President Harris. Through direct voter contact and digital and video campaigns, South Asians for Biden reached several hundred thousand South Asian and AAPI voters in states that contributed to an electoral victory in the 2020 presidential election.
Anil
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what is South Asian?
Indian
Pakistani
Bangladeshi
Sri Lankan
The warring parties coming together in the USA to bring down USA for Palestine.
May 1, 2024LOL!
In pain!
Mouli
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Pramila Jaypaul, I certainly don’t want to be any part of your group and please don’t claim to represent the South Asian citizenry. . You have not only brought disrepute to the South Asian group in particular, the Indian diaspora by prophesying the extreme left wing ideals an anathema to most Indians here. And Kamala, who claims to be of South Asian origin, has the least amount of interface with the Indian groups, except during elections and the rest of the time as a senior Afro-American leader. She cant be trusted. Let’s choose the leader of this country on our own on what’s good for this country, not just for South Asians.
May 1, 2024Partha Sircar
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Kamala Harris should be projected for her achievements and herrecord, which are considerable. Projectingher as a South Asianis rather flimsy. Sheisonly half south Asian by birth, not married to a South Asian and by all accounts, has little contact with the South Asian community.
May 1, 2024Mouli
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Kamala’s achievements (!!!!!) as a VP is just zero and of course her gaffes procees before anything along with her cakles when posed with tough questions
May 2, 2024Meet
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Her Birth Certificate her mother classified her as a Caucasian, I believe Indian person can classified if he/she chooses?
May 3, 2024Virendra Jain
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Now she is Biden’s “secret weapon” to win the election !!
May 3, 2024She will be describing what a secret weapon is over and over again till the electin and fall off !!
Pradeep Srivastava
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I would strongly urge everyone, especially, Indian Americans, to support Biden administration and Democrats, even though we may not always agree with them on every issue, basically, for two reasons. One, we cannot afford to support Trump and his new Republican Party, which is unrecognizable when compared to Ronald Reagan’s Republican Party. I fail to understand why Trump is doing so well in polls, considering that he has been indicted for 88 charges in four criminal cases and that he is a known for his lies, distortions, deceptions, sexual assault on women, nepotism, racism, xenophobia , corruption, and incompetence. Two, as much as we all love India, the country of our origin, it won’t make sense for Indian Americans to be only concerned about which candidate will be good for India. Instead, we need to elect candidates who will be good for the United States and its citizens because the United States is where we currently live, not in India and the United States is where our children and grandchildren live. I know Trump is a buddy of PM Modi and Indians like Trump more than Biden, but as much as we all love Modi, we should not support Trump just because Modi likes him. Let Indians elect Modi because he has been good for India, but let’s not support Trump because he is bad for the United States. Biden is not perfect, but way better than Trump because of his knowledge, extensive experience and the qualities of heart in terms of decency, empathy, and compassion. He just needs to do a better job of selling his accomplishments.
May 6, 2024Pradeep Srivastava
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The following article makes a strong case for voting for Biden, instead of Trump.
“We Finally Found a “Good” Republican
I’m not kidding!
DEAN OBEIDALLAH
May 7, 2024
(The Dean’s Report)”
The following are some relevant excerpts from this article.
“But given my goal on this front is not to score partisan points but to protect our nation from the fascist threat posed by Donald Trump and MAGA, I must applaud one Republican leader who has not caved but stayed true to his words about the danger Trump poses. That person is former Georgia GOP Lt. Governor Geoff Duncan.“
“ From there, Duncan later publicly denounced Trump as having “the moral compass of an axe murderer.” And in 2023, he directly laid the blame for the Jan 6 attack where it belonged, namely with Trump. “We wouldn’t have had January 6, we wouldn’t have completely soiled the Republican brand for maybe decades, people’s lives wouldn’t have been train wrecked to the point that they are,” Duncan explained at the time.”
“ Now if Duncan was like Barr or Sununu, this would be the point where he’d flip flop and endorse Trump given absolute loyalty to Trump is what is demanded of anyone who wants a future in the MAGA GOP. But Duncan didn’t do that. Instead, on Monday, he wrote an op-ed in Georgia’s well respected, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution titled, “Why I’m voting for Biden and other Republicans should, too.” Duncan, who is 49 years old and clearly wants to be a leader in a new GOP that is free from MAGA, noted in the articles subtitle that, “Donald Trump has disqualified himself through his conduct and his character.”
“ Duncan then laid out both what Trump did and how continues to pose a threat to our nation, explaining: “Trump fanned the flames of unfounded conspiracy theories that led to the horrific events of Jan. 6, 2021. He refuses to admit he lost the last election and has hinted he might do so again after the next one.” He added, “Trump has shown us who he is. We should believe him. To think he is going to change at the age of 77 is beyond improbable.”
The longtime Republican also acknowledged that as a conservative he does not agree with many of Biden’s policies. But vying to attract other like-minded Republicans who were disgusted with Trump’s attempted coup and his conduct as President such his “erratic” handling of Covid and his fueling of “racial unrest”—as Duncan put it—they should vote for Biden in 2024 to both save the Republican Party and the nation.
Duncan concluded his op-ed with the powerful lines: “Unlike Trump, I’ve belonged to the GOP my entire life. This November, I am voting for a decent person I disagree with on policy over a criminal defendant without a moral compass.””
“ I would never vote for the very conservative Duncan. But in the close election that 2024 will be, we need people like Duncan who are lifelong conservatives to–as the first GOP President Abraham Lincoln put it—appeal to “the better angels” of the subset of Republicans who could be persuaded to not vote for Trump and even possibly vote for Biden.”
May 7, 2024