Asian Indian respondents favored Democratic candidates in separate hypothetical Senate and House ballots, with 66% choosing Democrats in each, according to the 2026 AAPI Voter Survey released ahead of the Nov. 3 midterms.
Among 148 Asian Indian respondents to the Senate question, 22% chose a Republican, 7% another party, 3% were unsure and 2% skipped the question. In the House question, 18% of 242 respondents chose a Republican, 9% another party, 5% were unsure and 1% skipped. Respondents were asked to imagine voting in each congressional race on the survey date and select a party’s candidate. The questions measured hypothetical congressional preferences, not a choice between congressional candidates and President Donald Trump.
Across the full survey sample, 60% chose a Democratic Senate candidate and 25% a Republican; the question had 812 responses. For the House, 63% chose a Democrat and 24% a Republican among 2,066 responses. Those totals cover the full sample, not only Asian Indian respondents.
Cost of living and inflation ranked as important to 90% of Asian American respondents, who rated the combined issue very or extremely important to their vote. Across the full sample, 44% said Democrats would handle it better, 18% chose Republicans and 36% saw no difference.
NORC at the University of Chicago conducted the survey for Asian & Pacific Islander American Vote (APIAVote) and AAPI Data. It interviewed 2,066 registered voters ages 18 and older from Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander communities from June 3 to July 27, 2026. The overall margin of error, including the design effect, was ±3.32 percentage points. The crosstabs report no subgroup-specific margin of error for Asian Indian respondents.
APIAVote’s Aug. 26 release said 90% of AAPI registered voters planned to vote, compared with 84% in 2022 and 86% in 2018. Those figures describe intentions, not recorded turnout. The release also said 58% of respondents reported no Republican outreach, while 42% reported no Democratic outreach. AAPI Data founder and Executive Director Karthick Ramakrishnan described the uncontacted voters as “tremendous electoral potential waiting to be activated.”
A separate Reuters/Ipsos poll found that registered voters favored Democrats over Republicans by 47% to 35% in a generic congressional ballot, as EconoTimes noted in its earlier coverage of the poll. The Nov. 3 election will determine party control of all 435 House seats and roughly one-third of the Senate.
