‘Samosa caucus’ – Meet the 4 Democratic Indian-American lawmakers re-elected to US House of Representatives
Democratic vice-presidential nominee Kamala Harris is the most prominent member of the Samosa Caucus.
FollowIt has been a great election night for the Samosa Caucus - a name used to refer to Indian-American lawmakers who are either part of the US Congress or Senate.
All four Indian-American Democratic lawmakers — Dr Ami Bera, Pramila Jayapal, Ro Khanna and Raja Krishnamoorthi were re-elected to the US House of Representatives.
The Indian-American community has emerged as a force to reckon with for the first time in the history of the US presidential election. Both the Democrat and the Republican campaigns had taken several measures to woo the approximately 1.8 million members of the community in the battleground states of Florida, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Texas.
The 'Samosa caucus' currently comprises five Indian-American lawmakers, including the four members of the House of Representatives and Senator and Democratic vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris, 56.
The so-called 'Samosa caucus' was coined by Raja Krishnamoorthi for informal grouping of Indian-American lawmakers and he got 70% of the votes. Raja Krishnamoorthi, 47, easily defeated Preston Nelson, 30, of the Libertarian Party.
Ro Khanna, 44, easily defeated fellow Indian-American Ritesh Tandon, 48, of the Republican Party with a margin of more than 50 percentage points. This was his third-consecutive win from the 17th Congressional district of California.
Dr Ami Bera, 55, the senior most member of the 'Samosa Caucus', won the seventh Congressional District of California for the fifth consecutive term. When the last report came in, he had established an inaccessible lead by more than 25 percentage points against his Republican rival 65-year-old Buzz Patterson.
Pramila Jayapal has been re-elected for the US House of Representatives for the third consecutive term. Chennai-born Jayapal, 55, from the Democratic Party, defeated Republican Craig Keller by a massive 70 percentage points in the Seventh Congressional District of Washington State. With nearly 80% of the votes counted, Jayapal who, over the last four years has emerged as one of the top progressive lawmakers in the US Congress, received 344,541 votes as against just 61,940 for Keller.
The group might expand with at least one more as physician Dr Hiral Tipirneni was leading against Republican incumbent David Schweikert from the sixth Congressional district of Arizona when last reports came in.
There are 1.9 million Indian Americans eligible to vote but the number is growing. Every year, approximately 1.5 lakh Indian Americans will become eligible to vote, a trend that might lead to a larger representation of desi voices in the US Congress and Senate.
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