Mental Health and Voter Turnout: The Case of Asian Americans amidst Pandemic

• In Event: Asian American Political Behavior: Diverse Communities and Methodologies

Abstract

While political behavior research has sought out to understand how mental health influences the propensity of turning out to vote, little scholarship in political science has considered how race/ethnicity conditions and structures this relationship. In this paper, I consider how mental health impacts the ability to turnout to vote – centering the experiences of Asian Americans. I theorize that worsening reports of mental health decreases the likelihood of voting for two reasons. Asian Americans’ depression and anxiety have worsened after the pandemic disproportionately to other racial/ethnic groups. Further, the scapegoating of Asian Americans to the spread of the coronavirus, compounded by racism during the public health crisis, worsened this minoritized community’s mental health. Empirically, I start by examining the role of mental health on voter turnout using both the 2016 and 2020 Collaborative Multiracial Post-Election Surveys, which allows for a comparison of this relationship pre- and post-pandemic. I find that while worsening reports of mental health among Asian Americans had no impact on the group’s turnout in 2016, this relationship changed in 2020. That is, Asian Americans who reported experiencing worse mental health were significantly less likely to have turned out to vote in the 2020 General Election. This negative relationship observed in 2020 was the strongest among Asian Americans relative to Whites, Latinos, and African Americans. Further analysis demonstrates that this relationship was largely shared across Asian American national origin, and the demobilizing impact of worsening mental health was particularly pronounced among Chinese, Filipino, Indian, and Korean Americans. Younger and native-born Asian Americans who reported experiencing mental health issues were less likely to turnout to vote relative to older, foreign-born Asian Americans. Intersectional analysis across race and gender demonstrates that worsening mental health was disproportionately associated with lower rates of voter turnout among Asian American women, while exerting no influence among Asian American men. The paper also will present results from an original survey of 1,000 Chinese Americans to be in the field in approximately March 2024. In light of both isolation during the pandemic as well as the rise in hate and racial/ethnic discrimination experienced at the same time, understanding electoral behavior among the fastest growing monoracial/ethnic group in the U.S. requires an understanding of the influence of mental health. The paper adds to literatures in political behavior, race/ethnicity, political psychology, and public health.

Author

• Nathan Kar Ming Chan, Loyola Marymount University