Indian Americans, Almost All Dems, Win State House And Senate Seats
Photo: Renuka Mayadev
India-West News Desk
WASHINGTON, DC – In the November bruising elections for Democrats, many Indian Americans have fared will from the party. Here are the ones where counting has been completed.
Victory:
Renuka Mayadev has won the election to the Wisconsin State Assembly, from District 77. Currently working at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, she previously served as an executive at United Way Central Ohio, where she focused on improving outcomes for public school children. “My parents came from India in the late 1960s with virtually nothing, but they taught me and my sisters, love of country, and (that) you have to give back. You have to give back. And so that’s why I wanted to run,” she said in an interview for the 365 Amplified podcast. Mayadev campaigned on a platform addressing gun violence, abortion rights, and protecting democracy. She holds a degree from Northwestern University and earned her law degree from Georgetown University Law Center.
Relection:
Arvind Venkat, 50, won re-election to the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, securing another term to represent District 30. Venkat, an emergency room physician, was first elected in November 2022 and made history as the first Indian American to serve in the state House. He is also the first physician in nearly 60 years to be elected to the General Assembly. Before entering politics, he worked as an attending physician at Allegheny General Hospital, specializing in emergency medicine. Born in Madurai, Tamil Nadu, and raised in Detroit, Venkat is a graduate of Harvard University and Yale School of Medicine.
State Rep. Nabeela Syed has successfully retained her Illinois State House seat, defeating Republican challenger Tosi Ufodike. Securing 55% of the vote compared to Ufodike’s 45%, with 91% of votes counted, Syed celebrated her latest victory in the 51st district, which covers parts of Chicago’s north suburbs, including Hawthorn Woods, Long Grove, and Lake Zurich. Now 25, she first made history in 2022, becoming the youngest woman in the Illinois House and one of its first two Muslim members. Syed was inspired to enter politics during her high school years, amid rising anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim rhetoric linked to Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign. Born and raised in Illinois, Syed is the daughter of Indian immigrants from Hyderabad and holds a bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of California, Berkeley.
Democrat Jeremy Cooney has won re-election to New York’s 56th State Senate District, defeating former Gates Police Chief Jim VanBrederode. Cooney, who was adopted from an orphanage in Kolkata and raised by a single mother in Rochester, made history in 2020 as the first Asian American elected to state office from upstate New York. During his first year in office, he authored over 50 legislative bills. Cooney holds a J.D. from Albany Law School and is married to Dr. Diane Lu, a urologic surgeon at the University of Rochester Medical Center. The 56th District includes all of Monroe County, covering the towns of Brighton, Gates, Greece, Henrietta, and parts of the city of Rochester.
Zohran Kwame Mamdani was re-elected to the New York State Assembly, representing District 36. On October 23, he announced his candidacy for New York City mayor, challenging incumbent Mayor Eric Adams, who is facing federal corruption charges. If elected, Mamdani would make history as the city’s first Muslim mayor. He is the son of filmmaker Mira Nair and political commentator Mahmood Mamdani, and at 33 has become a prominent progressive voice in New York politics, influenced, he has said, by U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders. In 2020, he became the first South Asian American and third Muslim American elected to the New York State Assembly, defeating incumbent Aravella Simotas in a tight race. Mamdani represents Queens neighborhoods like Astoria and Ditmars-Steinway.
Jenifer Rajkumar has won re-election to the New York State Assembly, representing District 38 in south Queens. She has served in Albany’s lower chamber since 2021 and made history as the first South Asian woman elected to state office in New York. Rajkumar, 41, has championed several significant initiatives, including successfully advocating for Diwali to be recognized as a state school holiday and establishing New York’s AAPI Commission. Born to doctors who immigrated from India and settled in Queens, Rajkumar holds a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Pennsylvania and a Juris Doctor from Stanford Law School.
State Rep. Nima Kulkarni won re-election to the Kentucky House of Representatives for District 40. She secured 10,293 votes, running unopposed after Republicans did not nominate a candidate. This victory came despite a legal challenge from Dennis Horlander, the former state representative Kulkarni had unseated in 2018. Horlander argued that her candidacy was invalid because one of the witnesses on her filing paperwork was a registered Republican. However, the Kentucky Supreme Court rejected his challenge, allowing Kulkarni to remain on the ballot. Kulkarni, an immigration attorney, first made history in 2018 as the first Indian American elected to Kentucky’s state legislature. Born in India, she moved to the U.S. at age six and has become a notable advocate for immigrant rights within the Kentucky House.
Ranjeev Puri has won re-election to the Michigan House of Representatives, securing his seat in District 24 for a third term. Puri, a Democrat, currently serves as the House Majority Whip and chairs the Appropriations Subcommittee on Transportation. Before entering politics, Puri was a community organizer and worked in financial consulting, later serving under President Barack Obama. Born in Wisconsin, to immigrant parents, he is a proud example of the “American Dream.” Puri holds a bachelor’s degree in economics from Ohio State University and an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.
Vermont State Senator Kesha Ram Hinsdale has won re-election to her third term, securing 21,498 votes, or 20.1% of the vote. Ram Hinsdale made history in 2020 as the first woman of color elected to the Vermont State Senate and was re-elected in 2022. Prior to her Senate career, she served in the Vermont House of Representatives from 2009 to 2016, starting at the age of 22. Born to a Jewish mother and a Hindu father, Ram Hinsdale grew up in Los Angeles where her parents owned an Irish pub. The 38-year-old holds a Master of Public Administration from the Harvard Kennedy School.
Unopposed:
Democrat Reuben D’Silva won re-election to Nevada’s State Assembly for District 28, running unopposed. First elected in 2022, D’Silva, 38, was born in Mumbai and immigrated to the United States as a toddler. He holds master’s degrees from both the University of Pennsylvania and Yale University.
State Senator Nikil Saval has been re-elected from District 1, which encompasses central Philadelphia. At 41, Saval, the first South Asian American elected to the Pennsylvania State Senate, ran unopposed in this race. Before his political career, Saval was the co-editor-in-chief of n+1, a literary magazine based in Brooklyn and wrote for The New York Times and The New Yorker on topics related to architecture and design. He also co-founded Reclaim Philadelphia, an organization that emerged from the Bernie Sanders 2016 presidential campaign. Born in Los Angeles to parents from Bangalore, Saval grew up in West Los Angeles. He holds a B.A. from Columbia College and a Ph.D. in English from Stanford University.
Lost:
Democrat Anna Thomas ran a close race against Republican incumbent Joe Emrick for the 137th District seat in the Pennsylvania state House of Representatives. Emrick defended his seat, securing 20,203 votes (55.0%) to Thomas’s 18,796 votes (45.0%). The race was a rematch of their 2022 contest. In that previous race, Anna Thomas lost only by a narrow margin of 703 votes. Thomas is a member of the Bethlehem Township Planning Commission and once again put up a strong challenge but fell short.
In the race for Pennsylvania’s 18th Legislative District, Democratic challenger Anand Patel was defeated by incumbent Republican State Rep. K.C. Tomlinson. Tomlinson secured 55.7% of the vote, totaling 17,835 votes, while Patel earned 44.3%, with 14,190 votes.
Democrat Minita Sanghvi, who ran for the 44th District of the New York State Senate, lost to Republican Jim Tedisco by approximately 25,000 votes.
