Democrats hope to court AAPI voters in crucial battleground districts

Democrats across the country celebrated last month when Tom Suozzi, their party’s candidate, won a competitive House special election in New York.

They attributed his success on Long Island to honing a message about immigration, border security and abortion.

But in the weeks that followed, Asian American campaign strategists, consultants and community leaders pointed to another trend that boosted Suozzi: high turnout among Asian American and Pacific Islander voters, particularly in the Queens portion of Suozzi’s district, which is home to large communities of Chinese Americans, Korean Americans, Indian Americans and Arab Americans.

Now, Democratic strategists and Asian American political consultants say that replicating the messages and strategies that boosted AAPI turnout in Queens could be the key to flipping competitive House districts and holding Senate seats in some of the nation’s most critical down-ballot battleground territory this fall — places like California, Nevada, Arizona, New York and Georgia.

AAPI political outreach ‘has to be multi-pronged’

In the New York special election, Democratic political strategists knew there wouldn’t be one easy, inexpensive way to convince AAPI voters to turn out for Suozzi.

“In order for outreach like this to be successful, it has to be multi-pronged,” Rep. Grace Meng, D-N.Y., whose district borders Suozzi’s, told NBC News.

Suozzi’s campaign had a staffer dedicated to working with Asian American communities, but “you can’t just have an Asian staffer,” Meng said.

In addition to hosting events with Suozzi and Asian American voters in the district, consultants working with the AAPI Victory Fund, a national super PAC that works to engage AAPI voters, sent direct-mail campaigns in native languages, organized robocalls voiced by local community leaders and broke down Democratic messaging in several languages to better target Asian American subgroups.