Slow Voter Turnout in Santa Clara County for Midterm Election?

 

Mirroring the voting trends in California, the voters in Santa Clara County have not returned their mail-in ballots as expected.  With about 7.8% of 1,013,616 ballots returned as of February 25, a spokesperson for the Santa Clara County Registrar of Voters noted that this is historically at the lower end.  Even with the usual last-minute surge of voters next week on Primary Election Day and 7-day allowance after the election date for receiving ballots, the office does not expect the turnout to be more than 55%.

The Vietnamese-American voters historically exhibit a lower turnout than the overall average.  Analyses by Viet Poll Media for the last 6 elections since 2022 showed on average, Vietnamese-American turnout is 6 percentage points lower than the overall turnout.  In comparison, the Chinese and Indian turnouts are 8-9 percentage points higher than the overall.  Of all the voter demographics, Hispanic turnout is about 10 percentage points lower.  

In the 2020 election, the Silicon Valley Community Foundation funded a voting awareness program and identified several districts in San Jose where the turnout was traditionally low.  The data indicated some of the low-turnout demographics were located in Vietnamese-dominated precincts in Districts 7 and 8.

With over 80% of voters casting ballots by mail in the county, candidates are actively walking their precincts trying to garner as many votes as they can.  One of the high-profile races is the District 2  supervisorial race to replace the long-time political stalwart Cindy Chavez.   The two Vietnamese-American candidates, Betty Duong and Madison Nguyen, are considered to be the front runners because of their strong name recognition and financial backing.

The two candidates are being viewed differently in the Vietnamese community and it affects so far their campaigning strategies and outreach to potential voters.  Vietnamese-American votes are about 18% of the registered voters in District 2.  

Betty Duong is everywhere in the community as she always has been anyway before her election campaign. Her various positions at the county give her a high profile and close interaction to help the community.  She was at all major events during the Lunar New Year and often was introduced and given the opportunity to speak.  She has walked and knocked over 20,000 doors just to be in touch with the voters.

Madison is taking a more passive approach and has limited her interactions with the community.  She tried to have a campaign kick-off and fund raiser at Dynasty Restaurant in Vietnam town in June of last year and was met with about 80 protesters.  After her bitter defeat to Ash Kalra in the 2016 assembly race, she disappeared from the community and moved to Nevada until she decided to run for the supervisorial seat.  She hardly walks the precincts and rarely is invited to community events, partly because organizers did not want to have any commotions.  The Vietnamese voters still hold their grudges after all these years for the divisiveness she caused. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zqm3JdpWSZ4&ab_channel=VIEMMAIVLOG

 In 2016, the D27 assembly race was for her to win against Kalra and she managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.  The district had 20% Vietnamese registered voters in a presidential election pitting Donald Trump against Hillary Clinton. Just like the majority of the country during that time, the mostly conservative Vietnamese voting bloc was motivated by Trumpism and had the highest turnout ever. 

She raised more than $1.2 million for the race, and her supporting PACs of mostly Govern for California, Charter Schools Association, and California Association of Realtors spent $3 million to defeat Kalra.   The list of billionaires behind her campaign was impressive with last names like Fisher, Munger and Jobs.

Ash Kalra could hardly raise over $650k and his supporting PAC’s spent about $1.3 million.   He was trounced in the primary election by 15 points.  Not many political pundits gave him a chance, especially in a district with a strong Vietnamese-American voting bloc.

It was so bad that State Senator Janet Nguyen called one of his supporters and suggested that he might consider taking a centrist position on several issues so that she could try to convince the lobbyists in Sacramento to slow down their PAC funding for Nguyen’s campaign.   

Yet, Kalra managed to beat her by almost 8% in the general election.  It was a stunning defeat considering she was banking on the Vietnamese voters to line up behind her.  Meanwhile, on the Election Night of 2016, the Viet community in general must have thought good riddance.  And now they are motivated to help Betty Duong.

Madison Nguyen has been on a “ poor me “ tour with the Vietnamese-American media.  She claimed that she was misunderstood and voters should give her a second look.  She tried hard to reach out and apologized to the community leaders and influencers for her role in the Little Saigon naming donnybrook. 

Even though big political names in San Jose like former Mayor Sam Liccardo had endorsed her in the past, a lot of them decided to stay on the sideline this time.  The new popular Mayor Matt Mahan also decided not to endorse her although he is her friend and among her tight-knit of supporters. He might not know the community well but he does not have a political tin ear.

The conventional wisdom suggests that both Duong and Nguyen are likely to be in the runoff in November.  In Orange County, the supervisorial District 1 race is another heavily contested race between Janet Nguyen and Van Tran.  These are two explosive races in the Vietnamese-American community with a lot of divisiveness in the community and in the case of Janet vs. Van, everlasting bitterness and personal hatred.   What history has shown us in the last 20 years is that in races pitting Vietnamese candidates against each other, they will be close and could be decided by less than 3 votes.