Heavy exposure in Chinese-language media and intense personal outreach by San Francisco's Mayor Willie Brown ensured a landslide for the incumbent within the important -- and increasingly civic-minded -- Chinese American community. New California Media editor Song Hsiang accompanied exit pollsters of the Chinese American Voter Education Committee (CAVEC) on voting day. This article is also available in Chinese and Spanish from New California Media at ncmonline.com.

SAN FRANCISCO -- San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown succeeded in capturing the Chinese American vote in his race for reelection, according to an exit poll conducted for the Chinese American Voter Education Committee (CAVEC), and he could get an even bigger share of that vote in the Dec. 14 runoff.

Sixty-five percent of Chinese American voters surveyed in the David Binder Research poll chose the incumbent Brown while only three percent opted for Supervisor Tom Ammiano. Frank Jordan and Clint Reilly, who were expected to split the conservative vote, received 10 and 13 percent, respectively, with the poll's margin of error at 3.8 percent. Asked whom they would support in the event of a runoff between Brown and Ammiano, 77 percent of Chinese American voters surveyed picked Brown, eight percent chose Ammiano and 15 percent said they were undecided, according to the poll.

Four years earlier, Brown failed to attract Chinese American support which went overwhelmingly to his opponent, then incumbent Mayor Frank Jordan. "The seismic shift in grassroots Chinese American support is all the more striking because it occurred despite heavy criticism of the mayor by many Chinese American political leaders and the endorsement of Reilly by the Chinese American Democratic Club," noted CAVEC executive director David Lee.

The poll, conducted in the city's nine precincts with heaviest concentrations of Chinese registered voters, found that the vast majority of Chinese American voters surveyed were immigrants, with 51 percent naming China as their country of origin, and 20 percent naming Hong Kong. Close to half of those surveyed cited the Chinese language media, both print and TV, as their primary sources of information.

"Mayor Brown resonates with Chinese voters in terms of ideology and priorities," says Supervisor Mabel Teng, who called Ammiano's track record "incompatible with Chinese voters."

But Brown also put much more effort into community outreach.

"He came to our community meetings and talked about crime prevention and community development," said a voter who called herself "Julie," outside a polling station in a senior center in Visitacion Valley. Miles south of San Francisco's traditional "Chinatown," the area is one where the number of Chinese-owned homes and storefronts are increasing.

By becoming a virtual fixture at key gatherings and events among an increasingly civic-minded Chinese community, Brown managed to get more than an equal share of exposure in the Chinese-language media.

"We dutifully covered all the candidates, their campaign activities and debates," said a reporter for the Sing Tao Daily, "but if someone actively engaged the community more than other candidates, naturally it would show in a higher exposure rate." She described Ammiano's attitude toward the Chinese media as standoffish at best and downright cold at times. Mei Ling Sze, anchor and senior reporter at the Cantonese-language TV station KTSF, agreed. "Brown appeared in many more community events than Jordan, though many Chinese identified with Jordan on ideology and issues," Sze remarked.

Some Brown critics in the Chinese American community complain that while allegations of questionable deals and the FBI investigation of one city department were dutifully covered by the Chinese-language media, the stories lacked the critical scrutiny that the English-language mainstream media gave the same issues. When asked about allegations of corruption in the Brown administration, several Chinese voters at one polling station looked blank.

If the poll provides one cause for worry to the Brown campaign, says David Lee, it lies in "an age gap." The overwhelming majority of Chinese Americans who said they voted for Brown were over 45 years of age, the survey found. By contrast, Chinese voters between 25 and 34 said they wanted change. "Any one but Brown," commented one young voter.

"The Ammiano write-in campaign was clearly as much about generational politics as it was about gender politics," Lee says. "The new generation of San Franciscans, regardless of race, feels locked out of power. The write-in vote for Ammiano was an in-your-face revolt against the elders of the Democratic party who've been telling them to wait their turn." Lee says it was this last minute protest vote that cost the Chinese American voters their bid--the third in two years--to save the Central Freeway. While 92 percent of Chinese American voters surveyed backed Proposition J, to rebuild the freeway, it was defeated by the tide of Ammiano write-in votes.

Lee says the CAVEC poll was the only exit poll carried out in the city in this off-election year, and the first focused on Chinese Americans to go outside the Chinatown districts to outlying precincts. Some 20 pollsters, speaking in English, Mandarin and Cantonese, interviewed 661 voters, of whom 50 percent were Chinese Americans.