In the ongoing presidential elections, most of Indian-Americans choice is Hillary Clinton despite the headline-grabbing political action committee launched in support of Republican nominee Donald Trump by a handful of them.

According to the reports, "Clinton was the choice of 67% of registered Indian-American voters, while Trump got the support of only 7%, behind even the 8% respondents supporting other candidates, 10% who still don't know who they will vote for and 8% who refused to answer, according to a new poll. A clear majority of them are Democrats or leaning towards that party - 71%, compared to 14% who said they were Independents, and 13% who were Republican or leaning towards that party."

Indian-Americans have historically been solidly Democratic and remain so despite some movements towards the Republican Party. More of them are identifying as Democrats or Democrat-leaning in 2016 - 71% - compared to 58% in 2012, when President Barack Obama was running for his second term.

The surprise finding of the survey, however, was support in the Indian-American community for legalising marijuana - 48% were for legalisation, and 43% opposed it.

These were the findings of the Fall 2016 National Asian American Survey released last week. It was conducted among Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPIs) in August-September, after the conventions of the two parties and the first presidential debate.

The poll found 78% of Indian-Americans were overwhelmingly against Trump's call to ban Muslims from entering the US, a position he has since changed in favour of "extreme vetting" to keep out those with suspect intentions.

Indian-Americans, called Asian Indians in the survey, are the second largest chunk of this ethnic mix, at 19%, after Chinese Americans who were at 23%, and ahead of Filipinos who were at 16%.

Also Read: Trump trolled for three spelling mistakes in a 21 word tweet

BY M.DIVYA SRI