According to analysis from the civic engagement nonprofit group APIAVote, Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders had the largest increase in voter registration of any racial group in the United States from January to June compared to the same period in 2020.

Experts believe the increase in voter registration can be attributed to a number of factors: the increase in first-generation immigrants who are getting naturalized, the fact that more young U.S.-born Asian Americans have turned 18, and more get-out-the-vote initiatives targeted to Asian American communities.

Between 1960 and 2019, there was a 29% increase in immigrants arriving in the U.S. from Asian countries. They now represent the fastest-growing category of eligible voters in the country since 2020.

Christine Chen, executive director of APIAVote, also pointed to the political momentum and activism against anti-Asian hate, which increased tremendously during the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2021, the Pew Research Center found that 8 in 10 Asian Americans said violence against them was increasing, and more than half of those surveyed said they experienced a racially charged incident against them.

“There’s just a feeling of not being safe and not being secure,” Chen said. “So I think people are looking for change. They’re recognizing that this is part of the equation — that they need to lean in and actually participate.”

During the 2020 elections, voter participation among Asian Americans increased by 11% from the 2018 midterm elections. The number of Asian Americans who cast a ballot in 2020 in swing states exceeded the presidential margin of victory.

Chen said it was not a coincidence as anti-Asian hate increased at the same time efforts had been made for Asian Americans to get out and vote.

“So leading into 2020, there were a lot more efforts from the community to talk about building political power and connecting that to voting,” Chen said. “Then you have the rise of anti-Asian violence and the pandemic. … People are still feeling that elected officials, not enough of them are hearing from us and paying attention to us. And so I think that also continued to drive the growth.”

Karthick Ramakrishnan, co-founder of the research nonprofit group AAPI Data, told NBC News the growth is also driven by naturalized citizens, who now make up a majority of Asian American eligible voters.

He also pointed to the fact that some states have made it much easier and more convenient for naturalized citizens to register to vote when it was previously more difficult for naturalized citizens to navigate the process.

“Changes in voter registration rules in a handful of states that are making it much easier and much more automatic for people to be registered to vote,” he said.

Ramakrishnan also pointed to polarizing figures in the last decade of politics, notably former President Donald Trump, whom he said it is “hard to have a neutral stance on.” During the COVID-19 pandemic, Trump repeatedly called the disease “the China virus,” and one study from the University of California San Fransisco found that it contributed to the increase in anti-Asian hate across the country.

“It’s undeniable that Donald Trump has increased people’s interest in engaging with politics,” Ramakrishnan told NBC. “He’s a polarizing figure. Either people are energized in support of Trump or opposed to Trump.”