There have been surveys done of whites and Latinos and African Americans, but none on Asians, so we thought it was important to do this before the elections because a lot of times, Asians don't get covered in the news because there's no data. We saw that during the primary season -- there were a lot of news stories speculating about whether Asians were supporting Hillary Clinton, but there was no data to say one way or the other. At the time, race was supposed to be a factor, but we see that most of those who supported Clinton have transferred to Obama, with very few moving over to McCain, so there is not much support for the argument that race is the biggest factor in Asian American minds.

How did this team of four researchers come together to do this ground-breaking study?

The four of us have known each other for over eight years now and we get along well with each other, and that was important. We started thinking about this project two years ago. We raised money through foundations. The challenge was getting the first grant. The biggest donors were the Russell Sage Foundation and the James Irvine Foundation.

Was there any division of labour, in the sense of you doing the Indian Americans and others doing other ethnic groups?

No. We divided the tasks based on the time that people had and other factors. One person had to create the sample; another had to do the questionnaire. But we worked on everything together. Different people specialize on different tasks, but we did not segregate in terms of ethnic groups. Plus, it was non partisan -- we didn't think about parties or candidates. All of us have done prior work not just on Asians, but also Latinos and other immigrant groups. If the results had come out in favor of McCain, we would have reported the data that way.

Image: The Indian American Republican Council Reception at Minneapolis.
Photograph: Paresh Gandhi

Also read: Why the US presidential debates are crucial

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