The March 15 primaries boosted hopes for greater Indian American representation at the federal and state levels in the Nov. 8 general elections.
In the Democratic Party primaries, Raja Krishnamoorthi, 42, won the party nomination in Illinois’s 8th District, for the U.S. House of Representatives by a wide margin.
Attorney Jay Chaudhuri, 47, got 60 percent of the votes in District 16, to be the Democratic party candidate in his race for the North Carolina state Senate.
Now both candidates say that though their districts are Democratic leaning, they must gear up for the possibility of a fallout from Donald Trump’s nomination as the Republican candidate, which could draw many new voters to the polls Nov. 8 and upset their electoral calculus.
“While we have a good chance of winning, I’m not taking anything for granted,” Krishnamoorthi said. “With Donald Trump, we have to be vigilant and show we have a clear choice between divisiveness and unity. We need to work really hard.”
Chaudhuri too said he is not taking anything for granted and would double down on campaigning for every last vote. “It’s a Democrat leaning district but our campaign will not take anything for granted,” he told News India Times.
Both of them acknowledged the backing they received from Indian-Americans who rallied to volunteer and vote for them. “Indian-Americans play a big role here,” Chaudhuri said about District 16. “They played a role in providing early financial support to get my campaign started. And they were critical in our volunteer base, knocking on doors and making phone calls.”
Krishnamoorthi said Indian-Americans and South Asians were a part of his “amazing coalition.”
An IT businessman and attorney by training, Krishnamoorthi secured 56.9 percent of the Democratic vote leaving his two Democratic opponents far behind. He told News India Times he was amazed at the nearly 30 point lead he secured, but conceded he was the favored candidate of the party in this second attempt after 2012 when he lost the nomination to Iraq War veteran Tammy Duckworth, now her party’s nominee for the U.S. Senate.
“We had a lot of support from the grassroots all the way up, and including South Asians and Indian-Americans volunteering and voting,” Krishnamoorthi said. “It was an amazing coalition.” He raised an impressive $1.6 million for the primary race alone and now estimates he will have to raise multiple times that amount to beat his Republican opponent, Elmhurst Republican Peter DiCianni, a DuPage County Board member, on Nov. 8.
District 8 has 725,320 residents, a majority (493,417) are white, and 207,517 identify as Hispanic or Latino, and 96,353 as Asian, a significant number of them Indian-Americans and South Asians who live in neighborhoods like Elk Grove Village, Hoffman Estates, Pallatine and Schaumburg. In 2014, Duckworth secured 55.7 percent of the vote here to her Republican opponent Lawrence Kaifesh’s 44.3 percent, which gives some idea of the Democratic leanings in the district.
The “Trump Effect”
Krishnamoorthi, however, says he is taking no chances, especially with the surge in new voters expected at the polls in November mobilized by billionaire Trump. In fact, according to his calculations, the turnout in the open March 15 primary, was 16 percent higher than the one in 2008 when a Senator Barack Obama was pitted against then-Senator Hillary Clinton.
He is gearing up for a massive outreach effort on a national scale, including to the Indian-American network. “We have to be ready for anything, including the Donald Trump-effect, and SuperPACs,” said Krishnamoorthi who has not received SuperPAC support so far. Democrats, he said, have to address the constituency that is being drawn to Trump, “speak to the real issues these people face – economic hardship and stagnation, and not being able to climb the education ladder,” like Indian-Americans who have benefited from it. The challenge is to make those opportunities available to those who feel alienated, including Trump supporters.
“South Asians turned out in higher numbers than normal this time,” Krishnamoorthi said, hoping that would be the “new normal” in the future.
Even some Indian-American Republicans like Ohio State Rep. Niraj Antani, lauded Krishnamoorthi’s win. “It’s always great to have Indian-American candidates win. If we can’t have a Republican, we might as well have an Indian-American,” Antani told News India Times. He is opposed to a Trump candidacy and insists that his candidate, Ohio Gov. John Kasich will be the Republican nominee in what he sees as a “contested” convention.
North Carolina
Chaudhuri, an attorney who won the 16th state Senate district nomination, has held important positions in state government and faces off against Republican Eric Weaver in November having won important labor and political endorsements. In 2014 and 2012, Democratic incumbent state Senator Josh Stein won huge majorities in this historically Democratic-leaning district which covers parts of Raleigh, Morrisville, Cary and western Wake County, and Chaudhuri is considered a shoo-in. But he said he is not leaving anything to chance and would campaign vigorously.
Indian-Americans who have been attracted to the area’s IT industry and research institutions, came out enthusiastically to work on Chaudhuri’s primary campaign. . The 40-plus volunteers, many of them Indian-American, helped make some 62,067 calls and door knocks to voters, Chaudhuri said.
He wants to expand outreach nationally to Indian-Americans, “because we have shown that we know how to win a race and our message of bringing world class education resonates,” he added.
Chaudhuri would be the first Asian-American in the North Carolina legislature if elected in November, and the 3rd Indian-American to win a state Senate seat in the country after Satveer Chaudhary in Minnesota (2000-2010) and Swati Dandekar in Iowa (2009-2011).
Chaudhuri’s endorsements from labor unions and top North Carolina office-holders, also gives him a leg up in the general election.
According to February filings, Chaudhuri had raised almost $290,000 from 571 contributors. He may need to raise close to $250,000 to run the rest of his campaign, according to those familiar with the race.
Chaudhuri has touted his record as special counsel in the AG office where he is credited with developing major policy initiatives, for example, to combat methamphetamine; spearheading the AG’s Campus Safety Task Force after the Virginia Tech shooting in 2006, etc., and serving from 2009 to mid-2015, as general counsel and senior policy adviser to State Treasurer Janet Cowell.
Other Races
Some other races that would affect Indian-Americans’ political standing nationally and at state levels include California state Attorney General Kamala Harris’ run for the U.S. Senate; incumbent California Democratic Rep. Ami Bera, running for his third term from District 7; Maryland state Assemblyman and former Majority Leader Kumar Barve, the first Indian-American to win a state assembly seat back in 1990, still seeking his party’s nomination in his bid for the U.S. Congress from District 8; civil rights advocate and Washington state Assemblywoman Pramila Jayapal’s run for the U.S. Senate from District 7; attorney Neil Makhija, chosen by the Democratic Party to run for the Pennsylvania state House from District 122; and three-term Vermont state Rep. Kesha Ram’s bid for Lt. Governor, among others.
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