Majority of Indian-Americans support Obama for 2nd term

An overwhelming majority of Indian-Americans support United States President Barack Obama against his Republican rival Mitt Romney in November presidential elections, a national survey has said.

Romney has so far been able to gain support of a minority of Indian-Americans despite the frequent anti-Obama rhetoric by two leading Indian-American Republicans -- South Carolina Governor Nicky Haley and Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal.

"Indian-Americans are by far the strongest supporters of Barack Obama, giving him an edge of 68 per cent to five per cent, with 25 per cent undecided and the rest voting for another candidate. Thus, while Governors Bobby Jindal and Nikki Haley are among the strongest critics of Barack Obama, they seem to be in a relatively small minority of Indian Americans who support Mitt Romney," said a survey carried out by National Asian American Survey.

The NASA survey of Asian Americans is based on a national poll conducted between July 31 to September 19 through telephone of 3,034 people which included 386 Indian-Americans.

According to the survey, Obama has a favorability of 88 per cent among Indian-Americans while Romney has a favorability of just 30 per cent. Approval of the President's job is particularly high among Indian-Americans (82 per cent), and is conspicuously low among Filipinos (45 per cent) and Samoans (41 per cent), it said.

The survey said that among likely voters, 43 per cent of Asian Americans support Obama while 24 per cent support Romney.

There are some considerable differences by ethnic group, with Indian-Americans showing the strongest support for Obama (68 per cent), and Filipinos showing the strongest support for Romney (38 per cent). Nearly one-third (32 per cent) of likely Asian American voters remain undecided.

By comparison, recent surveys of the general population show that undecided voters are roughly seven per cent of the electorate. One in six Asian Americans (17 per cent) lives in a battleground state during the 2012 presidential election.

Indian and Korean Americans constitute a greater share of the battleground state population than their respectively national population shares, and Chinese and Filipino Americans constitute a relatively smaller share in battleground states.