Leading advocacy committee applauds 'historic election' of Indian-Americans in 2020 Election

New York - A leading Indian-American advocacy and political action committee has applauded the “historic election” of Indian-American candidates in the 2020 US elections, saying voters and candidates from the community demonstrated their burgeoning power and influence across key battleground states.

As many as 14 candidates of Indian-descent, endorsed by the political action committee IMPACT, were elected in the November 3 elections.

Among these are Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi re-elected for a third term to the US House of Representatives, winning the 8th District of Illinois, which includes Chicago’s west and northwest suburbs and Congressmen Ro Khanna and Ami Bera.

The executive director of IMPACT, Neil Makhija, in a statement applauded this year’s historic election for Indian American candidates and voters.

IMPACT said the 2020 election featured a record number of Indian American candidates running in key state and federal races across the country, as well as the first Indian-American to be on a presidential ticket, in vice-presidential candidate Kamala Harris.

IMPACT raised a ground-breaking $10 million to support turnout efforts in the Asian-American and Indian-American community and to elect IMPACT’s 2020 slate of candidates.

The funds were invested in the presidential, state-wide, and congressional races in battleground states, including nearly $2 million apiece in Pennsylvania, Arizona, North Carolina and Texas.

“This year’s election represented a giant leap forward for Indian-Americans’ role in US politics,” Makhija said.

“Indian-American voters and candidates demonstrated the burgeoning power and influence of this important voting bloc in decisive fashion, which will help make the difference in key states like Michigan and Pennsylvania,” he added.

Noting that while each and every Indian-American candidate deserves to be recognised for their effort, he particularly congratulated Kesha Ram for being the first woman of colour elected to the Vermont State Senate, Nikil Saval for being the first Indian-American elected to the Pennsylvania General Assembly, and Jenifer Rajkumar for being the first South Asian woman elected to New York state office.

IMPACT said Asian-Americans are the fastest-growing racial or ethnic voting bloc in the country.

There are projected to be 2 million Indian-American voters in this year’s election.

Indian-Americans register and vote at higher rates.

This year, there were nearly 500,000 Indian-American voters in the battleground states of Florida, Pennsylvania, and Michigan.

The number of Indian-Americans in Congress has grown five-fold in just the past eight years.

The elected Indian-American candidates included Nima Kulkarni elected to Kentucky State House, Jeremy Cooney to New York State Senate, Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal in Washington, Vandana Slatter for Washington State House, Padma Kuppa elected to Michigan State House, Jay Chaudhuri for North Carolina State Senate, Ravi Sandill in Texas as 127th District Court Judge and Amish Shah in US, State House Arizona.

IMPACT-endorsed candidates leading in yet undecided races are Hiral Tipirneni in the Arizona US House, Ranjeev Puri for Michigan State House and Rupande Mehta for New Jersey State Senate.