DECATUR, Ga. — Democratic hopeful Jon Ossoff spent Wednesday morning courting a small, but growing voting block in Georgia that his campaign believes could propel him to the U.S. Senate.
In a parking lot of the martial arts studio, Tsunami, Ossoff addressed about two dozen members of Asian American and Pacific Islander community in Decatur.
“And, I’m here to ask humbly for the support from Asian American voters here in the community,” said the 33-year-old candidate.
Paul Yoon owns the studio. The Korean-American is an independent, who has voted Republican in the past, but connects more with Ossoff.
“I just think Jon Ossoff represents more of my beliefs, represents more of what I’m about than Perdue. That’s the reason why,” said Yoon.
The 38-year-old small business owner said he doesn’t think Perdue took COVID-19 seriously early in the pandemic.
He’s also concerned with multiple news stories about Perdue’s stock trading just before the pandemic and his connection to federal contractors as a member of two Senate subcommittees which oversee military spending and cybersecurity.
In a story published by the New York Times on Wednesday, “the senator bought and sold FireEye stock 61 times, at one point owning as much as $250,000 worth of shares in the company.”
According the Times article, Perdue was among a few senators in 2016 who cited a report produced by FireEye about the threat of hackers and the need to alarm the National Guard about potential data breaches.
Perdue has repeatedly disputed claims he took advantage of his position because his trades were handled by outside advisers without his knowledge.
“If I had any information about something and I used that to move stocks, I would go to jail,” said Yoon.
11Alive has requested to interview with the senator multiples times over the past few months, but his campaign has declined.
Yoon is among the state’s 238,000 eligible Asian American voters. While they make up just four percent of the state’s electorate, they are Georgia’s fastest growing demographic and largely Democrat.
According to the consulting firm, TargetSmart, 91 percent more Asian Americans voted this past November in Georgia than in 2016.
Some of that high turnout was fueled by President Trump and Perdue’s language describing the origins of COVID-19.
“Clearly, China was responsible for this,” said Perdue during an October debate televised and hosted by WTOC-TV in Savannah.
The president continues to call COVID-19 “the Chinese virus.” He’s also referred to it as the “Kung Flu.”
Trump believes the language is appropriate, despite repeated requests by the Asian American community to stop.
“It’s not racist all, it comes from China,” said Trump during a news conference in March.
Yoon cringes each time he hears the words. “What a racist,” he said. “You are specifically targeting a certain demographic and a certain race. Why would you do that? I don’t understand.“
Ossoff said he hopes to schedule a similar event with former Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang, an Asian American.