In a few days, the verdict of American voters will determine who will succeed President Barack Obama in the White House.
Will Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton or Republican Donald Trump win on November 8 to be the 45th president of the United States?
If party affiliation or identification is an indicator, Hillary Clinton may be the president of choice of Filipinos in America.
The Filipino Channel (TFC) conducted a survey among 21,000 of its subscribers in America. With 534 registered voters who responded, the required sample size with a margin of error of 4.3 has been met.
42 percent of Fil-Ams identify as Democrats while 26 percent identify as Republicans.
This poll results is consistent with the findings of other independent surveys covering minorities/voting blocs in the nation, as discussed by Dr. Robyn Rodriguez, professor of Asian American Studies at the University of California-Davis.
In a two-way match-up, the same poll reveals that Clinton leads by 15 points at 53 percent versus Trump’s 38 percent. Nine percent of the respondents remain undecided.
There are an estimated 2.5 million Filipino-American voters, and as ABS-CBN News Bureau Chief Paul Henson reported on TFC’s daily newscast “Balitang America,” this is a sizeable figure in the Asian American vote.
Most kababayans who vote Republican tend to be swayed by the issue of free choice on abortion, the legalization of gay marriage, and the pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants.
However, many more kababayans have the following issues in their minds when they vote on November 8.
The TFC survey asked respondents which issues matter most to them. Here are the results:
Economy – 38 percent
Immigration — 23 percent
Philippine-U.S. Relations – 17 percent
Affordable Health Care – 12 percent
National Security – 10 percent
Immigration has become a contentious issue among kababyans in America. With about 4 million Fil-Ams, kababayans rank the second largest in Asian American population. Of these numbers, there is an estimated 310,000 undocumented Filipinos, hoping to find a way to live and work legally in the United States. The Democratic platform on immigration is their lifeline to their American Dream and family reunification.
Will the Fil-Am vote sway the results of the election and help catapult Hillary Clinton to be the first woman president of the United States?
* * *
Gel Santos Relos is the anchor of TFC’s “Balitang America.” Views and opinions expressed by the author in this column are are solely those of the author and not of Asian Journal and ABS-CBN-TFC. For comments, go to www.TheFil-AmPerspective.com, https://www.facebook.com/Gel.Santos.Relos
