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Donald Trump woos Indian-American voters, with clips from Howdy Modi

Hindustan Times, Washington | ByYashwant Raj
Aug 24, 2020 06:43 AM IST

The video opens with a panoramic view of the stadium where the ‘Howdy Modi’ event was hosted in Houston in September 2019 and cuts to the February event in Ahmedabad, which was the US President’s first visit to India.

The race for Indian American votes is well and truly under way.

The Trump campaign on Saturday released a video titled ‘Four More Years’, which seeks to rally the 1.2 million Indian-American voters in the US ahead of the November presidential election and features clips showing Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressing the ‘Howdy Modi’ event in Texas last year and the US President ‘Namaste Trump’ event in Ahmedabad this February. The two leaders had shared the stage on both the events.

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“America enjoys a great relationship with India and our campaign enjoys great support from Indian Americans!” Kimberly Guilfoyle, national chair of the Trump Victory Finance Committee, wrote in a tweet with the short video.

Donald Trump Jr, the president’s eldest son and Guilfoyle’s partner, retweeted the post.

The video opens with a panoramic view of the stadium where the ‘Howdy Modi’ event was hosted in Houston in September 2019 and cuts to the February event in Ahmedabad, which was the US President’s first visit to India. “America loves India,” Trump says in a clip from the event, adding “America respects India, and America will always be faithful and loyal friends to the Indian people.”

The video marks the campaign’s most visible pitch yet to the Indian-American voters, and comes just hours ahead of the Republican party’s convention that will official nominate Trump for a second term on Monday.

The video was also released just days after Democratic presidential nominee and former US vice president Joe Biden declared California Senator Kamala Harris his running mate, making her the first Indian-American and Black woman to be nominated for the key position by a major US party. Harris, 55, has since invoked her Indian heritage -- her mother was a cancer researcher who emigrated to the US from Chennai -- multiple times, including at the Democratic National Convention earlier this week.

The Biden campaign, too, has reached out to Indian-American community in the run up to the four-day Democratic convention that began on August 17.

At an Indian Independence Day celebration held virtually on August 15, the Democrat had pledged closer ties with India and a better deal for Indian-Americans in a short, policy-laden message, saying he will stand with New Delhi in confronting “new threats its faces in its own region and along its own border”. He also promised to check China’s “impunity” along the border and not tolerate cross-border terrorism.

Al Mason, who conceptualised the ‘4 More Year’ video, said, “The video depicts great friendship and love between India- US - cemented by the emotional bond between Prime Minister Modi & President Trump. Trump is much loved by the community.”

Mason leads Trump campaign’s outreach to the Indian-American community and is the co-chair of Trump Victory Indian-American Finance Committee. The video, he added, “will evoke mega support in terms of fund raising at the grass root level and votes for President Trump in battleground states — a must win for Trump”.

The American states of Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Florida are likely won or lost by wafer-thin margins.

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