Trump backers see economic relief, Harris supporters decry loss of key issues

By Ritu Jha-

Prominent Indian-Americans concerned about immigration and the economy, rejoiced Wednesday, November 6, in Republican Donald Trump’s election victory.

In a landslide that no polls predicted, Trump easily won 295 electoral votes, compared to 226 for Democratic candidate and current Vice President Kamala Harris. Trump became the 47th U.S. President and the first Republican to win the popular vote since George W. Bush in 2004

Harris made her concession speech Wednesday at 1 p.m. EST from her alma mater Howard University, where she advocated for a peaceful transition of government. Trump Tuesday night gave his victory speech in Palm Beach, Florida, vowing to “make America great again”.

Dr. Sampat Shivangi, an American physician and Chairman of the American Association of Physicians of Indian Origin (AAPI), hailed Trump’s win. Shivangi had been nominated and elected as an official delegate at the Republican National Convention.

“The Democrats raised so much money and so many celebrities endorsed Kamala Harris and Obama, the Clintons supported them and they raised billions of dollars, and yet Trump has raced ahead,” Shivangi said.

He said people are tired of dealing with rising costs on daily necessities like gas, electricity, and groceries.

President-elect Donald Trump and former U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard attend a town hall event, at La Crosse, in Wisconsin. (REUTERS/ANI Photo)

“Everything is so expensive, at least 20 to 30% higher than before,” Shivangi said. “People who have a limited budget can’t afford the rising costs of living. The result proves that the electorate has spoken and shown what is good for them, 30-35% of Blacks also voted for Trump, while Harris got only 65% Black votes, she didn’t get 100%.”

Shivangi said the wars in Ukraine and Gaza will end as soon as Trump takes office.

“Iran will stop its aggression after Trump takes charge. The wars will come to an end and the inflation too will come down. The taxes are going to be cut down, as promised by Trump during the election campaign.”

Hemant Bhatt, Chairman of the Asian American Republican Coalition (AARC), agrees with Shivangi. Bhatt believes that voters’ dissatisfaction over illegal immigrants and the economic downturn helped Trump win.

“The American people were concerned about the 21 million or more illegal immigrants who have entered this country and nobody knows whether they are terrorists or drug traffickers or children abductors,” Shivangi said. “The people were very angry. The second issue was the economy, the inflation was too high, which drove up the grocery prices and the cost of other necessities. The Biden government later claimed that inflation was coming down. But no American has seen the prices come down. People are feeling stressed. The common man living on weekly checks was frustrated about what was happening in this country. They have given so much money to the warmongers, while Americans spoke out against the Hamas-Palestine and Ukraine-Russia war. The Biden government was unable to maintain the world order.”

He added that rising crime rates were also an issue.

“People living in places with high crime rates and gang activities are very unhappy with the government,” he said.

Bhatt started working for Republicans in 2015 when Trump declared his candidacy, and also campaigned for him in 2020.

“There are more than 25 million Asians all over America, out of which 15 million are registered voters. We were banking upon them to send out a very strong message that if the Asian American people come out and vote it would be a game-changer. We were trying to tell them that if they get out and vote, the balance of power can be maintained and ensure that our voices are heard. And if you look at the recent data, Asians, Hispanics, Latinos, everybody came out and voted for Trump. Entire America has spoken.

“Wherever we went, people asked us to bring Trump back. I said we are working on it, but they need to get out and vote. Unless they vote, he is not going to win. So that message was very effectively spread. This time better than the last time,” he said.

Trump getting elected will improve the economy, Bhatt said.

“Trump said that the gas prices will come down. He said that America is sitting on a gold mine and the nation will become energy independent in time to come. With gas prices coming down, the inflation will come down and with that, the prices of commodities or groceries will come down, which will be a big relief to the Indian-American people or Asian American people who are passing through a very bad economic phase at this point of time. The Republicans will also deal with the illegal immigrants and lower the taxes. If the taxes of the corporations are reduced, the amount will be passed on to the consumers because there will be a big competition in the market.”

Democrat Rajiv Bhateja, co-founder of They See Blue, a Silicon Valley-based national organization that mobilized South Asians in America, said supporters worked hard.

“Support for us was off the charts, we had people coming and saying that they would write a thousand postcards. The time when Biden was running, we got about 100 volunteers wishing to write postcards, the moment Kamala Harris came into the race, the numbers grew exponentially. And our volunteers have handwritten over 200,000 postcards to South Asian voters in battleground states. We’ve covered every South Asian home in the battleground states. Our membership has doubled, and people have been very enthusiastic. They’ve been working day and night, and around the clock in some cases. A lot of effort has been put in, now we have to see whether it’s going to pay off.”

Bhateja said They See Blue is very “data-driven,” operating with technical precision when looking for voters to contact and urge to vote. They have access to voting history, which is a matter of public record. Whom you vote for is private but whether you have voted becomes a matter fo public record instantly.

“We know who have voted regularly, so we don’t contact them. We don’t contact the people who have never voted, even though they could have. First, we contact those people who vote sometimes, we want to convince them to vote. After that we go after the people who haven’t voted, never voted, or the people who always vote. We prioritize in a very scientific way because first we want to target the irregular voters and then we want to target the regular voters.”.

They See Blue has 25 chapters all over the country, mostly in battleground states. It has also designed an AI program to identify people likely to vote for Democrats. 

“Apart from supporters of Democrats, and Republicans, we have a lot of non-partisan voters. We have an AI program to predict which nonpartisan voter is going to vote for Democrats. Some of our volunteers wrote that program and we tested it. We use that information to urge people to vote. We’re very scientific in our approach and try to be thoughtful and strategize on how we can use our resources the best.”

Democrat Deepka Lalwani, founder of Indian Business & Professional Women (IBPW) told indica she felt numb and grieved like many. Lalwani, a long time Harris supporter, wanted to preserve women’s rights and safeguard democracy among other things.

She told indica that IBPW members have got involved with the TheySeeBlue.org and have mailed hundreds of postcards to undecided voters in the swing states urging them to vote for Harris and Democrats. Controlled studies have shown that postcards increase voter turnout among irregular Democrat-leaning voters.

Sharing her thoughts on Harris’s loss, Lalwani says, “Maybe women’s rights, abortion, immigration did not appeal to average male Americans. And inflation and border issues stoked people’s fears.”

MR Rangaswami, founder of Indiaspora, congratulated President-elect Trump. He wrote, “We appreciate that during his first term, he appointed several Indian Americans to key positions in his administration. This representation is an encouraging sign. As part of the Indiaspora’s goal to advance civic engagement, we look forward to seeing more Indian Americans serve their country over the next four years in the Trump administration.”