New Delhi: Indian Americans are swinging back towards the Democratic Party ahead of the November 3 US midterm elections, with a new survey by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace finding that 62 percent intend to vote for Democratic congressional candidates, compared with just 19% backing Republicans.The findings suggest that the Republican gains among Indian Americans during the 2024 presidential election, when Donald Trump secured 30% of their support against Kamala Harris’s 62%, have largely been reversed during his second term in office.The survey, published on November 2, was conducted by Carnegie in partnership with research firm YouGov. It covered 1,000 Indian American adults between October 7 and October 27, with a margin of error of 3.87 percentage points. The voting preference analysis was restricted to 861 US citizens.According to the survey, Democratic candidates enjoy a similar advantage in Senate races, with 63% of Indian American respondents in states holding Senate elections saying they would vote for the Democratic candidate, against 21% who favoured the Republican.Indian Americans number fewer than six million and account for approximately 1.5% of the US population.The figures mark a recovery in Democratic support after it had slipped earlier this year. In January 2026, 57% of Indian American citizens had expressed support for the Democratic presidential candidate, while 25% backed Trump. The latest survey found that support for Democratic congressional candidates had returned to 62%, while Republican support had fallen to 19%.Carnegie’s authors, Sumitra Badrinathan, Devesh Kapur, Annabel Miller, Andy Robaina and Milan Vaishnav, cautioned against making direct comparisons between the different survey waves, as the earlier surveys measured presidential voting preferences while the latest one examined congressional voting intentions.Nevertheless, they said the trend indicated that “the Republican Party’s electoral gains among Indian Americans have not translated into durable support for Republican congressional candidates”.The Democratic advantage among Indian Americans is also considerably larger than among several other racial and ethnic groups in the United States. A comparison with a separate YouGov poll found that 62% of Indian American respondents intended to vote Democratic, compared with 40% of white voters and 46% of Hispanic voters. Among Black voters, support for Democratic congressional candidates stood at 76%.The decline in Republican support was especially evident among older Indian American men, a group that had become more receptive to Republican candidates in recent years.Among men aged 40 and above, support for Republican candidates had fallen to 16%, compared with 32% who had supported Trump in January 2026. Over the same period, support for Democratic candidates increased from 53% to 68%.Among younger Indian American men aged 18 to 39, 64% now favour Democratic congressional candidates, compared with 23 percent supporting Republicans. In 2024, 40% of this group had supported Trump, against 53% for Harris.Voting intentions among women varied by age group. Among women aged 18 to 39, 58% said they intended to vote for Democratic congressional candidates and 21% favoured Republicans. The Democratic figure was 10 percentage points lower than in January. Among women aged 40 and above, Democratic support had risen from 50% in January to 58% in October, while Republican support fell from 28% to 16%.Wealthy Indian American donors favour RepublicansThe shift in voting intentions presents a contrast with the political contributions of some of the wealthiest members of the Indian American community, many of whom have increasingly backed Trump and the Republican Party.An October 24 report by the Hindustan Times, based on its analysis of Federal Election Commission data, found that prominent Indian American donors had contributed more than $15.8 million to Republican-linked political action committees and funds since 2025, compared with approximately $3.7 million raised by Democrats from key donors within the community. This gave Republicans a roughly four-to-one fundraising advantage among prominent Indian American contributors.Much of the Republican funding came from a handful of wealthy donors, particularly those in the technology sector. Venture capitalist Asha Jadeja Motwani contributed an estimated $5.9 million to Trump-affiliated MAGA Inc and the Republican National Committee since 2025.“Trump is soaking up the money among big Indian-American donors. The people giving less than $1,000 are Democrats now. The people giving more than half a million dollars are Republicans,” veteran Democratic fundraiser Shekar Narasimhan told HT. He also pointed to a “big uptick” in smaller contributions to Democratic committees.The trend reflects a wider Republican advantage among some of the country’s wealthiest political contributors. A November 1 analysis by The New York Times found that the 20 biggest donors and donor groups had collectively contributed approximately $2 billion to federal races during the 2026 midterm cycle. The newspaper described the biggest spenders as having a “strong Republican- and tech-oriented tilt”.The world’s richest man Elon Musk topped the list with $445.6 million, while Republican-aligned industrialists Richard and Elizabeth Uihlein contributed $150 million. Although three major Democratic contributors also featured prominently in the top 20 list, the Times found that the overall balance among the biggest financial contributors remained tilted towards Republicans.Wider electoral headwinds for TrumpThe Carnegie findings come amid broader dissatisfaction with Trump’s presidency and economic performance. National opinion polls in the final days before the midterms have indicated a Democratic advantage in congressional voting preferences, with state of economy and affordability being the buzz words.An NBC poll conducted between October 28 and 30 also found that 52% of registered voters preferred Democratic control of Congress, compared with 45% who favoured Republican control. A Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted between October 22 and 26 similarly found that 53 percent of likely voters intended to vote for or lean towards Democratic candidates in their congressional districts, against 44 percent for Republicans.Democratic rebound without stronger party identificationDespite the Democratic advantage in voting intentions, the Carnegie survey found little corresponding change in the underlying partisan identities of Indian Americans. Forty-six per cent identified as Democrats, 19% as Republicans and 26% as independents, figures virtually unchanged from January 2026.This represents a stabilisation following the changes recorded around the 2024 presidential election. In 2020, 56% of respondents identified as Democrats and 15% as Republicans. By 2024, Democratic identification had fallen to 47%, while Republican identification had risen to 21%.The researchers also found that 35% of Indian Americans intending to vote for Democratic congressional candidates were primarily motivated by opposition to the Republican candidate or party, rather than support for the Democrats themselves. Among Republican supporters, the corresponding figure was just 17%.In their concluding assessment, the Carnegie researchers said the Democratic Party had regained some of its earlier support among Indian Americans, but that this had not resulted in a stronger identification with the party.“While Democrats will be buoyed by the fact that support for the party has rebounded somewhat, this recovery has not led to stronger partisan attachment,” they wrote.They also said the changing voting preferences showed that some Indian American voters remained open to switching their support between parties.“The Republican Party, in turn, should consider why its recent inroads have not translated into sustained gains at the ballot box,” the authors concluded.The survey comes at a time when Indian Americans have increasingly found themselves the target of anti-immigrant and racist rhetoric from sections of the American right, including political figures associated with the Republican Party. Attacks on the H-1B visa programme and allegations that Indian immigrants are taking jobs from Americans have also been accompanied by comments questioning the community’s place in US society.In April, Trump reposted a transcript of remarks by conservative commentator Michael Savage that described India and China as “hellhole” countries and accused immigrants from the two countries of failing to integrate into American society.More recently, Bo French, the Republican nominee for Texas Railroad Commissioner, posted a photograph of University of Texas students of South Asian origin celebrating a football victory and suggested that their presence showed “how many Americans have been displaced by foreigners”.The scale of the problem had also been documented in Carnegie’s own February 2026 survey. Nearly half of Indian American respondents said they encountered racist posts targeting Indians or Indian Americans on social media either very or somewhat often. One in four said they had been called a slur since the beginning of 2025, while 9 percent reported physical threats.A report by the Center for the Study of Organized Hate found that online hate speech targeting South Asians had more than tripled on X between January 2024 and June 2026. The report identified rhetoric from political figures and government accounts among the sources of the hostility.