Pramila Jayapal, Raja Krishnamoorthi: Indian Americans win seats to US Congress

Indian-American Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal and Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi won re-election to the US House of Representatives, PTI reported. Jayapal from the Democratic Party, won in the Seventh Congressional District of Washington State, for a third consecutive term. She defeated Republican challenger Craig Keller by a massive 70 percentage points.

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.

Jaypal was born in Tamil Nadu and spent most of her childhood in Indonesia and Singapore, before emigrating to the US in the 1980s.

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Meanwhile, Krishnamoorthi from the Democratic Party, romped home easily from Illinois. Born in Delhi in a Tamil family, his family emigrated to the US when he was three months old. 

Two other Indian-American Congressmen, Dr Ami Bera and Ro Khanna, were leading in their respective Congressional districts in California, as per early trends. The outgoing US House of Representatives has four Indian-American members.

Emergency Room physician Dr Hiral Tipirneni from the Democratic Party was leading against Republican incumbent David Schweikert from the sixth Congressional District of Arizona, when the last report came in. If elected, she would be the second-ever Indian-American woman to be elected to the House of Representatives.

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Sri Preston Kulkarni from the Democratic Party was giving a tough fight to Republican’s Troy Nehls from the 22nd Congressional District of Texas. He was trailing by five percentage points when reports last came in.

Republican Manga Anantatmula lost to Democratic incumbent Gerry Connolly in the 11th Congressional District of Virginia.