Suhas Subramanyam’s family is from Bengaluru.
Washington:
The “Samosa Caucus” – the group of Indian-Americans in the US Congress – has a strong chance of getting another member next year with Suhas Subramanyam’s victory in the Virginia Democratic primary.
He won Tuesday’s intraparty election to choose the Democratic candidate to run in the November general election for the House of Representatives in a congressional district he holds.
The electorate includes some Washington suburbs.
Meanwhile, in the New Jersey primary last week, Indian-American Rajesh Mohan won the Republican ticket for a House seat, but faces an uphill battle because he is in a heavily Democratic constituency.
There are now five Indian Americans in the House of Representatives, all Democrats who call themselves the “Samosa Caucus”: Ami Bera and Ro Khanna of California; Pramila Jayapal, from Washington State; Raja Krishnamoorthi of Illinois and Shri Thanedar of Michigan.
A state senator, Subramanyam bested 11 other candidates in an ugly race where his main opponent faced allegations of sexual harassment.
He was supported by retiring House Representative Jennifer Wexton, who flipped the seat to the Democratic side in 2018 and was re-elected twice, winning 53 percent of the vote in 2022, making it a safe seat for the party.
Mr. Subramanyam’s family is from Bengaluru.
A 37-year-old lawyer, he was a technology advisor to President Barack Obama, working on cybersecurity and the modernization of government agencies.
In 2019, he was elected to the Virginia General Assembly and to the State Senate last year.
He is also a doctor and volunteer firefighter.
Mohan, who defeated his three Republican rivals, will run in a Democratic-controlled constituency.
Andrew Kim, who is giving up his seat to run for U.S. Senate, withdrew it from the Republican Party in 2018 and won his second re-election in 2022 by 55 percent.
Three assessments of the race researched by Ballotopedia declared it a solid or safe Democratic seat.
A cardiologist, Mohan graduated in medicine from the Faculty of Medical Sciences, University of Delhi.
In New Jersey, Ravinder Singh Bhalla, mayor of Hoboken, lost the Democratic Party primary for the House seat to Rob Menendez, who currently holds the seat.
The incumbent representative’s father, Senator Bob Menendez, is on trial on corruption charges, but undeterred, he waged an ugly campaign against Bhalla, a turbaned Sikh, claiming he made quid-pro-quo deals with the mayor of a neighboring city and used images that detracted from his appearance in TV advertisements.
Susheela Jayapal, sister of influential congresswoman Pramila Jayapal, lost the primary for a Democratic seat in Oregon.
Pramila Jayapal leads the Congressional Progressive Caucus, a group of left-leaning Democratic Party lawmakers.
She represents a constituency in Washington state, neighboring Oregon, where her sister Susheela Jayapal was a county commissioner and was among several left-leaning candidates who faced an ideological backlash in the Democratic primary.
(Except the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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