It is now less than 100 days until Election Day in the U.S. and the race for President has been given a shake-up, with President Joe Biden announcing that he will no longer be seeking re-election. The presumptive Democratic Party candidate Vice President Kamala Harris -- the first Asian-American (Indian) and Black Vice President — is in the spotlight for the presidential race against former President Donald Trump.

Last year, Asia Society and the Asian American Journalists Association (AAJA), New York Chapter, hosted a discussion on The Rise of the Asian Candidate: Race and Representation in the 2024 Election with journalists sharing their experiences on the campaign trail with the candidates. This year, Asia Society, AAJA, New York Chapter, and the South Asian Journalists Assocation (SAJA) will examine the AAPI electorate — their makeup, the trends, what they care about, and how they see the candidates. How are they being spoken to? Are candidates making additional efforts to reach out to AAPI voters? Are there battleground districts and states where AAPI voters can impact election outcomes? Joining us for this conversation are journalists Farnoush Amiri, Associated Press; Stephanie Lai, Bloomberg News; and Ali Velshi, NBC Universal. Moderating the conversation will be the SAJA's Sree Sreenivasan.

Speakers

Farnoush Amiri is a congressional reporter with The Associated Press where she has spent the last several years covering the biggest political and policy stories from Washington and across the country. Previously, she was a statehouse reporter for AP in Columbus, Ohio. She was born in Iran and grew up in Southern California. 

Stephanie Lai is a White House and Politics reporter for Bloomberg News where she has been focused on the Trump campaign. She has broken dozens of stories involving Trump's second term economic plan and campaign strategy. Previously she covered Congress for the New York Times, breaking news for the Wall Street Journal, and local politics for the Washington Post and Los Angeles Times. She graduated with a Bachelors of Arts degree in political science from Columbia University in 2022. She served as the News and Investigations editor for the Columbia Daily Spectator as an undergraduate.

Ali Velshi is an award winning journalist, host of "Velshi" and Chief Correspondent for MSNBC, and a weekly economics contributor to NPR's "Here And Now." He has covered multiple U.S. Midterm and Presidential elections and significant news stories around the globe, including extensive reporting from Israel during the war with Israel and Hamas, Ukraine and across Central and Eastern Europe during the Russian invasion, the Syrian refugee crisis from Turkey and Jordan, and the Iran Nuclear Deal in Tehran. He hosts the "Velshi Banned Book Club” on MSNBC, and the "Velshi Banned Book Club" podcast. He is known for his immersive on-the-ground reporting and his interactive discussions with small groups, which form part of his ongoing series, "Velshi Across America." He previously worked as an anchor and correspondent for Al Jazeera America and CNN. He has been nominated for multiple Emmy Awards, and is the recipient of two National Headliner Awards and a Society of Professional Journalists Sigma Delta Chi Award.

Sree Sreenivasan (moderator) is CEO and co-founder of Digimentors, a social/digital/AI training and consulting company. He has served as Chief Digital Officer of New York City, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Columbia University (where he was a full-time professor of journalism for 20+ years). He is the 2024 President of SAJA, the South Asian Journalists Association, and since 2022, he has served on the board of Nobel Prize Outreach. In 1994, he co-founded SAJA, and in 1999, ONA, the Online News Association.

Presented in partnership with the Asian American Journalists Association (AAJA) New York Chapter and the South Asian Journalists Association (SAJA).