Indian-American Congressmen Ami Bera and Ro Khanna won their respective primaries in California Wednesday and will run for the Congressional elections on November 6. The three other Indian-Americans — Hirsh Singh, Goutam Jois and Peter Jacob – running for Congress in New Jersey lost their Congressional bid at the primary level. New Jersey has a sizeable Indian American population. Three-time Congressman from Seventh Congressional District of California, Bera bagged more than 51 per cent of the votes in the open primary. His nearest rival Andrew Grant from the Republican party received 32.9 per cent of the votes.
In California, the top two candidates, irrespective of their party affiliation in the open primary, head for the general elections for the House of Representatives. Khanna, who entered the House of Representatives for the first time in 2017, received an overwhelming 58.9 per cent of the votes in the open primary for the 17th Congressional District of California. His nearest rival Ron Cohen from the Republican Party received nearly 25 per cent of the votes.
Coming from a strong Democratic bastion, both Bera and Khanna are expected to win the Congressional elections in November. “Despite running an exciting insurgent campaign, Vivek Viswanathan came up short in his bid for California State Treasurer,” said Gautam Raghavan of the recently formed Impact Project, which is keeping track of some 80 Indian Americans running nationwide this election season. He received just 12.8 per cent of the votes as against his Democratic party colleague and Fiona Ma who won the polls with 43.3 per cent of the votes polled. Indian-American Subham Goel received just 0.1 per cent of the votes in the primary for the Governor of California.
