AAPI Victory Fund Announces New Federal Candidate Endorsements
WASHINGTON D.C. — The AAPI Victory Fund, the only national super PAC devoted to mobilizing Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islanders (AANHPIs) voters and supporting AANHPI candidates for elected office, today unveiled a new slate of federal candidate endorsements:
Rep. Andy Kim, U.S. Senate (NJ)
Dr. Amish Shah, U.S. House (AZ-01)
Evan Low, U.S. House (CA-16)
Derek Tran, U.S. House (CA-45)
Dave Min, U.S. House (CA-47) (previously announced)
Dr. Clarence Lam, U.S. House (MD-03)
Ravi Bhalla, U.S. House (NJ-08)
Susheela Jayapal, U.S. House (OR-03)
Leslie Mehta, U.S. House (VA-01)
“Investment in communicating to Asian American voters is how Democrats win all across the country. Running AANHPI candidates is one way to mobilize these communities to elect one of their own to Congress and in three cases, to flip a seat and restore sanity to the House,” said Shekar Narasimhan, chairman and founder of the AAPI Victory Fund. “AAPI Victory Fund is proud to endorse these leaders and can’t wait to uplift their candidacies in the upcoming elections.”
These candidates for federal office build on record numbers of Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders who ran for office in both 2022 and 2023.
“Candidates like Andy Kim have shown how Asian Americans can flip seats from red to blue and win all over the country,” said Joe Nguyễn, president and CEO of the AAPI Victory Fund. “We’re thrilled to be backing Andy’s bid to be just the ninth-ever AANHPI to serve in the U.S. Senate, as well as supporting these eight stellar candidates running to serve in the House of Representatives.”
The AAPI electorate has largely been untapped. A survey from the summer of 2022 found more than half of AAPI voters have never been contacted by either political party – making AAPI Victory Fund’s work to engage these voters ever more critical.
Most recently, AAPI Victory Fund was behind a major independent expenditure program targeting AANHPI voters in New York’s 3rd Congressional District special election. The program targeted roughly 40,000 South Asian registered voters with focused messages deployed in four languages (English, Hindi, Urdu, and Arabic) and five modes of communication (multilingual direct mail, texting, live calls, robocalls, and in-language ads in prominent local cultural news outlets).
AAPI Victory Fund is planning further paid media campaigns in battleground states this fall to continue increasing AAPI representation in elected offices and win elections for candidates that share our values.
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