At this summer’s Democratic National Convention, Kamala Harris spoke about her mother, who was born in the city of Chennai, India.
“My mother was 19 when she crossed the world alone, traveling from India to California with an unshakeable dream to be the scientist who would cure breast cancer,” said Harris, who would have been the first woman elected president, as well as the first person of South Asian descent.
Of course, President-elect Donald Trump won, sweeping all seven swing states.
Indian Americans might be expected to be devastated by Harris’ loss. But they are still poised to have more influence than in any previous administration under President-elect Donald Trump.
Trump has nominated Kash Patel to lead the FBI and Jay Battacharya over the National Institutes of Health. Vivek Ramaswamy will co-lead the new Department of Government Efficiency.
Trump picked Harmeet Dhillon to head the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division.
And, of course, Usha Vance will be Second Lady of the United States.
“That might come as a surprise to a lot of people because Indian-Americans tend to be Democratic,” said Karthick Ramakrishnan, a researcher at UC Berkeley.
He said that’s based on polls of how Indian Americans, as well as “people who have run for office and won elected office. Or if you look at political contributions. It’s a pretty heavy tilt towards the Democratic Party.”
Courting Indian Americans
But despite that tilt, Trump has embraced — and courted — Indian Americans.
In 2019, Trump shared the stage with India’s conservative and controversial prime minister, Narendra Modi, at a massive rally in Houston. The event, held at a football stadium, was nicknamed “Howdy Modi.”
To massive applause, Trump pledged to work with Modi to make the two countries “even more prosperous than ever before.”
In Trump’s first term, he nominated more mainstream Indian American Republicans, like Nikki Haley as U.N. ambassador and Ajit Pai to lead the FCC.
In his sequel, he’s tapping Indian Americans who’ve made their names as disruptors or fierce defenders of him.
Dhillon opposed the Patriot Act after 9/11 and protested against what she said was discrimination against Sikhs. She became a key defender of Trump starting in 2016, and after Trump lost the 2020 election, she floated the idea of the U.S. Supreme Court to “step in and do something.”
And Patel has echoed Trump’s calls for retribution against political opponents and journalists. In an appearance on Steve Bannon’s podcast last year, Patel said: “We’re going to come after the people in the media who lied about American citizens, helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections. We’re going to come after you, whether it’s criminally or civilly — we’ll figure that out.”
Battacharya was a skeptic of the government’s efforts to contain the spread of COVID-19. He signed onto a statement known as the “Great Barrington Declaration,” which called for trying to protect vulnerable populations while reopening society sooner.
Hopeful about a second term
The prominence of Indian Americans in Trump’s second administration has surprised some.
Avantika Modi immigrated to the U.S. in the late ’90s and moved to Charlotte in 2008.
She’s part of a wave of South Asians coming here for tech jobs in the city’s banks. That influx has made Indian Americans the second-largest group of foreign-born residents in North Carolina, after those born in Mexico.
She was disappointed Harris didn’t win. But she’s Googled Usha Vance and Trump’s Indian American nominees.
“I look at Vivek Ramasamy, and I look at his family,” she said. “And it’s the typical or traditional combination of education with tradition. And I think, ‘OK, maybe they are just doing this to win votes, and maybe they’ll actually do some good.’ ”
She’s cautiously optimistic about Trump’s second term.
“Some of the appointments he’s made of Indians maybe makes me hope and think that he’s not, you know, as racist as he is projected to be,” she said.
Shan Shanmugathan, of Charlotte, also works in IT. He grew up near where Harris’ mother was born in southern India. He also donated to Harris’ campaign when she ran for California attorney general 14 years ago.
But he voted three times for Trump, saying the president-elect can be a buffoon, but is right more than he’s wrong.
He likes Trump’s picks, especially Battacharya to lead NIH.
“Jay Battacharya is not an ordinary guy. He’s a Stanford professor,” he said.
Shanmugathan said he appreciates Battacharya’s willingness in the early days of the pandemic to push to reopen schools.
“That’s a mark of courage, right? Especially when saying an unpopular opinion is the most difficult thing to do,” he said.
He also approves of Patel’s nomination to the FBI. He said the agency had become too political under President Biden.
Shift to the right
The Asian American Voter Survey found 77% of Indian Americans said they voted for Hillary Clinton eight years ago. It found in September that 69% planned to vote for Harris.
That shift to the right was seen in other minority groups in the 2024 election.
Amit Mehta, who arrived in Charlotte 25 years ago, said the shift to the GOP is mostly from younger Indian Americans, born in the U.S.
“If I look at my uncles and aunts that live here they are staunch Democrats — 100%, right?” he said. “But then there are younger people that I can see leaning right.”
He said he’s not surprised by the prominence of Indian Americans being tapped to serve. He said his peers have been successful in business, and politics is the next logical frontier.
Fully embracing heritage
Former La. Gov. Bobby Jindal in 2008 was one of the first prominent conservative Indian American politicians. Like Nikki Haley, born Nimarata Nikki Randhawa, he anglicized his name and became a Christian.
But many Indian Americans today — both Republicans and Democrats — are embracing their heritage, said Pomona College political science professor Sara Sadhwani, who studies Asian American voting.
“And certainly Vivek Ramaswamy falls into that category,” she said. “He talked about what it meant for him to be a Hindu. Which is much different from Bobby Jindal, from Nikki Haley — even Kamala Harris.”
Perhaps no conservative Indian American has embraced their faith more than Dhillon, Trump’s pick to lead the Civil Rights Division at the DOJ. She gave a Sikh prayer at the Republican National Convention this summer.
She told the audience that, “to show respect we cover our head when we pray.”
Dhillon had a scarf that was across her shoulder, and then gently wrapped it over her head. She recited her prayer in Punjabi and then in English.
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