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LETTERS FROM A SWING STATE

Kamala Harris’ Pennsylvania Problem

‘It Smells Like a Rat’: The Nasty Feud That Could Flip Wisconsin

Kamala Harris Is Losing Support With This Key Demographic. It Could Cost Her Georgia.

He pauses for a second, looking at his workers wiping glossy wooden tables as they wait for the lunch rush to hit. Behind the open counter, his employees are laying out empty trays that have yet to be filled. Only a handful of customers are seated in the vast hall.

“Eating out has become such a financial burden these days,” he says. “That first and foremost needs to be fixed for us to survive.”

The best way to understand the Korean American vote in Georgia and its large percentage of independent voters — despite the conventional knowledge that Asian Americans skew Democratic — is to recognize the history of the community. It’s marked by its relative newness: Korean immigrants started to move to Gwinnett County en masse around the late 1980s and early ’90s. A large portion of the population still consists of first-generation immigrants with limited English proficiency and deep ties to their home country. There isn’t much of a culture of robust civic participation, let alone established party loyalty.

There wasn’t much outreach from either party until 2020, when the turnout increase among Asian American voters was identified as a key factor to Biden’s win in Georgia. Since then, both parties have poured more money into ads in ethnic media outlets or phone banking in the voters’ native language. Yet there’s still more outreach work to be done: 27 percent of Asian Americans across the nation have said that neither party has contacted them.

“Korean people, they are involuntarily independent because they are not informed by either party,” says Lee Jongwon, a lawyer and columnist for local Korean newspaper, Atlanta Joongang Daily News. Party loyalty can’t be established when Korean Americans don’t even have enough information to differentiate the two parties to begin with, he adds.

The lack of party connection means that the bloc often behaves like single-issue voters: In 2020 and 2022, racism and public safety was top-of-mind following a wave of hate crimes against Asians during the peak of the pandemic, including the 2021 spa shootings in the Atlanta area that killed eight people — six of whom were of Asian descent. For some, like Clara Lee, a small banchan shop owner in Gwinnett County, Trump’s rhetoric against immigrants still serves as a reason to vote against him: “When Trump was in power, hidden racists were given the opportunity to start revealing themselves,” she says. “So I started thinking there can never be a candidate like him again, especially since I’m a minority.”

But for most this year, concern over the economy is the dominant issue.

Restaurateur Lee Sung Yong’s woes over rising costs and a dwindling number of customers is a sentiment widely echoed throughout the tight-knit small business community in Gwinnett County — in spa shops, Korean restaurants and grocery stores.

“I think it is a bad economy right now. For us, we have 50 percent fewer customers,” says Shin Kyung Ok, who owns a hair salon in Duluth. On a recent weekday afternoon, when her shop should be filled with Korean housewives trying out the latest trending perm style while their children are at school, the salon is completely empty, only the sound of a local news report filling the space. “A little,” she says when I ask her if she blames the Biden administration. For now, she’s undecided on whom to vote for but is leaning against the current party in power. In the coming weeks, she says she’ll be keeping her eye on two things: the economy and immigration.

It’s the same issue in the cosmetics store next door: “Our sales have dropped, and I’ve heard that from other places too,” says May Kim, a store employee. The shop is a South Korean haven — a place with rows of the latest K-beauty products and shelves dedicated to Korean versions of over-the-counter medications — but there’s only one other customer roaming around. Kim is leaning toward voting for Harris but says that isn’t the case for many of her friends: “Those around me who aren’t wealthy, ordinary people, say that times have gotten tough.” The reason? Biden, she hears.

If it sounds like Biden is a punching bag for those who are discontent with the cost of living and dwindling profits, that’s not far from the truth. Most merchants I talked to couldn’t name specific economic policies implemented by Biden other than pandemic stimulus payments — also sent under the Trump administration — which they believed to have helped drive prices up. When asked about Harris’ economic policies, including tax breaks for small businesses, few could answer what they were and characterized her as an extension of Biden. In part, it’s a reflection of a significant information disconnect in the Korean American community because of a language barrier — and it’s hurting Harris’ standing as a presidential candidate. The Harris campaign hasn’t done enough to address the issue, Lee Jongwon says.

Rather than exclusively deliver messaging on the economy to Korean American communities in Georgia, the Harris campaign has also focused on the issue of Donald Trump’s racism. Its first targeted ads to Asian Americans in swing states solely focus on Trump, referencing the moment he called Covid-19 the “Kung Flu” and saying “he unleashed a wave of hate.” Several business owners in Gwinnett understand why Trump is called a racist — and yet the reality is that many of them say his rhetoric isn’t top of mind when people are living paycheck to paycheck.

“The problem is either party is not addressing Asian-specific issues — rice and noodle issues,” Lee Jongwon says, nodding to the local equivalent of “bread and butter” issues. And for Georgia Koreans, the ultimate rice and noodle issue is the cost of living. “Literally the price of rice is increasing now. A couple of years ago, a $5.99 lunch menu was available everywhere. Not anymore,” he says. Like most of the people I talked to in Gwinnett County, he remains undecided.

Even if national Democrats are making inroads in addressing racism, healthcare costs and immigration — commonly perceived policy priorities of the group — they appear to be missing the mark on the primary reason behind the decline in Korean American support. Like most voters, Korean Americans want to hear about the economy.

“The economy … is always kind of the number one concern for a lot of the Asian American population. And they’re not happy with what’s happened in the last four years. They want change,” says Rep. Soo Hong, a Republican state legislator who represents parts of Gwinnett. “And so I think that’s kind of why we’re seeing a little bit more of a shift of the Asian American community voting more on the conservative side than on the Democrat side.”

Local Democrats appear to be doing a better job of communicating an economic vision to Korean Americans with stump speeches about creating jobs and lowering the cost of living. One of them is Michelle Kang, a Democratic candidate for state House and a first-generation Korean immigrant. Kang’s involvement with both the Korean American Chamber of Commerce of Atlanta and Gwinnett Chamber of Commerce has helped her witness the struggles of Korean small business owners, she says. Despite her work in addressing Asian hate crimes and organizing cultural events, her top talking points are about the economy: economic mobility, lowering housing costs and pushing Congress to pass the Partner With Korea Act, which would help introduce jobs and visas to Koreans.

Kang recognizes that democratic principles are important, but says this year the economy is the overarching issue. “But what about the time that I have to pay my bill, pay my grocery bill?” Kang says. “So economy is one thing people [ask] if the Harris administration is going to benefit me literally. That’s the top thing.”

Kang thinks a focus on lowering costs is the best way to connect with local Korean Americans, many of whom have only been told to vote against Trump for his racism, rather than for Harris for her economic plan. To date, the campaign has put most of its efforts into phone banking and canvassing in Korean — and plans to add more dedicated Asian American voter engagement staff in Georgia — but Kang believes more ads in Korean in ethnic media outlets would prove productive since they would also reach recent immigrants with low English proficiency.

One thing Democrats are getting right is their use of local Korean American politicians, such as Georgia state Rep. Sam Park, who was first elected in 2016, to campaign for Harris on the ground: “Being present for the past eight years as a Democrat has helped kind of effectuate that open-mindedness [to Democrats],” said Park.

There may be a window of opportunity since the GOP’s outreach efforts here have been downsized: A Republican National Committee Asian American outreach center that opened in Gwinnett in 2021 shut down and was partially replaced by a sex shop in 2023. (The Trump campaign has also chosen a more unorthodox method of advertising this time that has caught the eye of some Korean American voters: driving a Trump bus — decorated with the American flag and Trump posing with a thumb up — around Gwinnett.)