Tag Archives: midterms

United States

2014 US midterms showcase rise of Asian Americans

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CIMG9933Flushing, in Queens, is one of the most Asian neighborhoods in the United States.

Apparently, the swing among Asian Americans between the 2012 general election in the United States and the 2014 midterm elections was a staggering 46%:asia iconUSflag

Note the big swing in the Asian voting bloc, too. In 2012, strong support for the president among Asian-American voters was a surprise. Asian voters preferred the president by 47 points. In 2014, the (low turnout) group split about evenly. It was a 46-point swing.

That still translates to a fairly robust tilt among Asian Americans toward Democrats — just not the overwhelming trend that we saw in 2012 and 2008 and, even to some degree, 2010. Other exit polling shows that Asian Americans still strongly supported Democrats — in Virginia, they favored incumbent Democratic senator Mark Warner over Republican challenger Ed Gillespie by a margin of 68% to 29%, for example.

But why should Asian Americans necessarily lean to the left? The Asian American experience in the United States is extremely varied, and it’s a growing bloc of disparate cultures and experiences. In that regard, Asian Americans are just like Latin Americans, who come from an equally broad range of national and ethnic background. Mexican Americans in California may have different political views that Mexican Americans in Texas, to say nothing of Salvadorans in Maryland, Cubans in New Jersey or Dominicans in Florida.

The same goes for Asian Americans.

So what are we talking about when we say, ‘Asian Americans?’ Continue reading 2014 US midterms showcase rise of Asian Americans →

Comparative Politics, District of Columbia, United States

What the world can teach the United States about DC voting rights

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A view of DC from the top of Anacostia in East Washington.

If you walk through parts of Brasília, it’s hard to believe that it wasn’t modeled, at least architecturally, upon Washington, D.C. when it was built in the late 1950. But when it comes to the voting rights of its capital’s citizens, Brazil has looked beyond the American example.Washington_DC_IconUSflag

Last month, when Brazil held a general election, some 2.5 million voters in the Brazilian Distrito Federal voted for a new governor, eight members to the Chamber of Deputies, the lower house of Brazil’s National Congress, and one of its three members to the Senate, its upper house. In that regard, Brazil’s DF is not unlike any other state in the country. Remarkably, with one deputy per 310,000 residents, that’s a better ratio of representation than the residents of Brazil’s largest state, the far more populous São Paulo.

It’s a typical and unremarkable arrangement around the world, and it’s not unlike Mexico’s Federal District (Mexico City), India’s Delhi Capital Territory and even places with a much more limited history of democracy, including Nigeria’s Federal Capital Territory (Abuja) and Malaysia’s Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur.

But not in the District of Columbia.

The United States of America, otherwise a beacon of democratic rule for over two centuries, is essentially the North Korea of federal district voting rights, a clear outlier for democratic best practices across the world. As voters across the country elect members of the House of Representatives, District voters have nothing. Continue reading What the world can teach the United States about DC voting rights →

European Union, United States

The US perspective on the European parliamentary elections

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I sat down with Brian Beary from Europolitics late Sunday night to discuss the results of the European parliamentary elections, with a particular focus on the US perspective. USflagEuropean_Union

The link is here (unfortunately, subscription only), but here’s one excerpt:

Is there a US equivalent to the Eurosceptics that did so well in the European elections?

In a formal sense, it is a peculiarly European thing. There are no parties in the US that are saying ‘we need to pull out of the United States’. The one thing they do share is that politicians in the US, for at least two generations now, in every election run against Washington. And in Europe, whether it is the hard Euroscepticism of groups like UKIP or Front National, or the soft Euroscepticism of certain members of the British Labour Party, or Silvio Berlusconi, there is an anti-Brussels-ness that reminds me of the way US politicians campaign against Washington.

Though many commentators and academics like to refer to the European Union today as a kind of ‘United States of Europe,’ especially during the EU’s ill-fated constitutional debate in 2004 and 2005, I argued that the European Union today more closely resembles the confederation of US states that existed under the 1781 Articles of Confederation.

Most US headlines in the lead-up to the European elections have concerned Ukraine and the ongoing security crisis and showdown with Russia that’s caused a regeneration of interest in transatlantic security, NATO’s role and additional follow-on issues,  such as the potential US export of liquified natural gas to Europe. In the aftermath of the European elections, US headlines are focusing on the rise of eurosceptic parties like Nigel Farage’s UK Independence Party and Marine Le Pen’s Front national in France.

In both cases, that’s understandable — and both topics are incredibly important. The real issues where the European Parliament will have the most impact in the next fiver years, however, are somewhat less sexy, but they should be on the radar of US policymakers and investors in the years ahead: Continue reading The US perspective on the European parliamentary elections →

14 in 14, United States

14 in 2014: US midterm elections

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14. United States midterm elections, November 4.USflag

Though US president Barack Obama and his administration’s top officials — secretary of state John Kerry, national security adviser Susan Rice and defense secretary Chuck Hagel — will continue to set the tone for US foreign policy through January 2017, US voters will elect all 435 members of the House of Representatives and one-third of the Senate, the upper house of the US Congress.

In particular, the Republican Party hopes to finish what it started with the 2010 midterm elections by winning control of both the House, where it currently enjoys a 232-to-200 majority, and the Senate, where the Democratic Party (and two independent allies) holds a 55-45 lead.  A bevy of gubernatorial elections (in 36 out of 50 states) will also decide who controls 12 out of the 15 most populous US states, including California, Florida, New York, Texas.

Midterm elections — and control of Congress — can effect huge results on American foreign policy.  Just recall the way that the 2006 midterm elections forced the nearly immediate resignation of former president George W. Bush’s defense secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, and signaled a new era in the US occupation in Iraq.

If the Republicans succeed, it would make Congress a much more muscular voice of opposition to Obama’s signature foreign policy initiatives — most notably with regard to Iran, with which the administration hopes to reach a deal on Iran’s nuclear energy program.  But the enhanced scrutiny from the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee and other committees to hold hearings on everything from Iran to the 2011 Benghazi consulate attack in Libya to the Obama administration’s ongoing global efforts to stop terror from Pakistan to Somalia to Yemen, could complicate Obama’s final two years in office.  The Republicans would also be able to pass legislation designed to embarrass the Obama administration or attempt to rein in executive power.

 Next: 14 more to watch in 2014