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A important bulk of Indian Americans disapprove of U.S. President Donald Trump’s archetypal twelvemonth occupation show arsenic per the results of a caller survey, Indian Americans successful a Time of Turbulence, released connected Thursday (February 19, 2026) by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. However, the disapproval for Mr. Trump’s occupation show has not translated into gains for the Democratic Party, which, portion having stronger enactment among Indian Americans comparative to the Republican party, is witnessing little levels of enactment from this demographic.
Just 29% of Indian Americans approved of Mr. Trump’s show – the aforesaid proportionality compared to 2020. The results are based connected the 2026 Indian American Attitudes Survey (IAAS), which surveyed the attitudes of 1000 Indian American adults betwixt November 25, 2025, and January 6, 2026. The survey information person a borderline of mistake of +/- 3.6%.
In presumption of enactment affiliation, the Democratic Party has seen a diminution successful enactment among Indian Americans from 52%(2020) to 48% (2024) and past to 46%(2026). The affiliation to the Republican Party, portion connected the up from 15% to 19% betwixt 2020 and 2024, has remained astatine 19% successful 2026. More than a 4th oregon 29% of Indian Americans surveyed identified arsenic Independent, up from 23% successful 2020 and 25% successful 2024, suggesting that the nonaccomplishment to the Democratic enactment successful enactment has caused an summation successful the stock of Independents.
The Indian American support rates for Mr. Trump’s archetypal twelvemonth successful bureau are little (disapproval rates are higher) compared to each Americans, for whom information was collected successful a contemporaneous survey by YouGov.
Disapproval rates for Trump’s policies
Broken down by argumentation areas, the disapproval rates are 64% for migration policies, 68% for home economical argumentation and 70% for planetary economical argumentation (trade, tariffs, sanctions).
However, determination is simply a crisp opposition crossed enactment lines, i.e., among Indian Americans who are Republicans and those who are Democrats. A ample bulk of Republican Indian Americans, 76% people, approved of Mr. Trump’s migration policies and 62% approved of his planetary economical policies. Some 84% of Indian American Democrats disapproved of Mr. Trump’s migration policies, and 86% disapproved of his planetary economical policies.
Indian Americans connected migration policies
Given the controversies and interaction connected the Indian American assemblage of the administration’s migration policies, the survey looks astatine 5 areas: arresting undocumented immigrants who bash not person a transgression record, conducting raids astatine the workplace, deporting immigrants to 3rd countries, actions to extremity birthright citizenship and the $100,000 H-1B (skilled idiosyncratic visas) interest for caller petitions.
A sizeable bulk of Democrats reason each 5 categories of policies, portion Republicans successful wide showed little enactment for each of these than for migration argumentation arsenic a whole, though a bulk of Indian American Republicans, much often than not, inactive supported these idiosyncratic policies.
Indian Americans connected U.S. relations with India
Only 20% of Indian Americans o.k. of Mr. Trump’s handling of relations with India, portion 55% disapprove. What is noticeable, arsenic per the authors is that a 4th of respondents said “don’t know” to this question, suggesting the contented is of constricted value to galore Indian Americans. Approval for the handling of the India narration was astatine 35% successful 2020 astatine the extremity of the archetypal Trump medication and 48% successful 2024 astatine the extremity of the medication of erstwhile U.S. President Joe Biden.
Between 2024 and 2026, younger Indian Americans (18-29) shifted backmost to the Democrats, arsenic per the survey. This is important fixed the accrued enactment for Mr. Trump successful the November 2024 predetermination from younger Americans. Those implicit 50 shifted towards the Republicans. Support for the Democratic enactment declined importantly among those without a assemblage grade and remained unchangeable for those with a assemblage degree. Indian Americans with an income supra $100,000 moved towards the Democratic party.
Across spiritual groups successful the Indian American population, Hindus are much Democrat leaning portion Christians are much Republican leaning. In information betwixt 2024 and 2026, Christian Indian American enactment for the Republican enactment accrued 33% to 43% portion the enactment from Hindus and Muslims declined.
The survey study was authored by Sumitra Badrinathan, Devesh Kapur, Andy Robaina and Milan Vaishnav.
