Over 80 Indian Americans in Fray in November 2018 Elections in U.S

More than 80 candidates from the Indian American community will contest the elections in the United States in November 2018. Most of the Indian-origin candidates are contesting on a Democratic party ticket while a small number of them represent the Republicans, according to a former White House official, PTI reported.

Over 220 Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders are running for offices in more than 30 states. The entire U.S. House of Representatives, and 35 of the 100 seats in the U.S. Senate will be up for election along with various offices in state governments. The November 2018 mid-term elections will take place in the middle of President Donald Trump’s term.

Democrat Pramila Jayapal, the U.S. Representative from Washington’s 7th congressional district, will be fighting to retain her position, while Aftab Pureval, the 35-year-old Democrat, will contest in Ohio’s 1st Congressional District after winning the primary unopposed.

Niraj Antani and Aziz Ahmad have advanced to the general election in the 42nd District and 7th District seat, respectively. Antani is a Republican while Ahmad is a Democrat.

“Over 80 Indian Americans are on the ballot this year,” Gautam Raghavan, a former White House official, and now leading the recently founded Indian-American Impact Fund said, according to the report.

“We have an unprecedented number of AAPI candidates. Over 50 that are running in congressional districts all across the country,” Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus (CAPAC) chair Congresswoman Judy Chu said, the report added.

Among the other Indian Americans seeking reelection for Congress are Ami Bera and Ro Khanna from California, Raja Krishnamoorthi from Illinois and Pramila Jayapal from Washington.

Also debuting for the Congressional race among the Democrats are Hiral Tipirneni from Arizona, Aruna Miller from Maryland, Saira Rao from Colorado, Suraj Patel from New York, and Preston Kulkarni from Texas. Republican Harry Arora is contesting from a Congressional seat in Connecticut. He was nominated unopposed by the Grand Old Party (GOP) at the Connecticut Republican Convention on May 11.

“A time of rising racism, xenophobia and hate violence. A time in which a sitting US Congresswoman who also happens to be the first Indian American woman elected to Congress is questioned about her citizenship on national television,” Raghavan said. He added that it was time for the community to get off the sidelines and enter the game.