As Nikki Haley and Vivek Ramaswamy rise, some Indian Americans have mixed feelings
When Reddy and his wife, Chandra Gangareddy, immigrants from southern India, settled in the Des Moines suburbs in September 2004, they could count the number of Indian American families on one hand. Only one Indian American had ever served in Congress at the time, and none had dared to mount a bid for the White House.
Now, for the first time in the nation's history, two Indian Americans — Nikki Haley and Vivek Ramaswamy — are serious presidential contenders who regularly invoke their parents' immigrant roots.
But their deeply conservative views, on display as they seek the Republican nomination, make it difficult for Reddy to fully celebrate the moment, he said.
«I'm really proud,» he said. «I just wish they had a better message.»
That disconnect, reflected in interviews with two dozen Indian American voters, donors and elected officials from across the political spectrum — in the early voting states of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina and across the country — may complicate the GOP's efforts to appeal to the small but influential Indian American electorate.
Indian Americans now make up about 2.1 million, or roughly 16%, of the estimated 13.4 million Asian Americans who are eligible to vote, the third-largest population of Asian origin behind Chinese and Filipino Americans, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of the 2021 American Community Survey.
