Photo: Renuka Mayadev

India-West Press Office

WASHINGTON, DC – In November’s bruising Democratic elections, many Native Americans faced the will of the party. Here are the ones where the countdown is over.

Victory:

Renuka Mayadev won the elections Wisconsin State Assembly, 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 arrived from India in the late 1960s with virtually nothing, but they taught me and my sisters a love of country and to give back. You must give back. And that’s why I wanted to introduce myself,” 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 a law degree from Georgetown University Law Center.

Re-election:

Arvind Venkat50 years old, was re-elected to 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 the Yale School of Medicine.

State Rep. Nabeela Syed successfully retained it Illinois State House seat, defeating Republican challenger Tosi Ufodike. Receiving 55 percent of the vote to Ufodike’s 45 percent, with 91 percent of the votes counted, Syed celebrated his latest victory in the 51st District, which covers parts of Chicago’s northern suburbs including Hawthorn Woods, Long Grove and Lake District. Zurich. Now 25, she made history for the first time 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 growing anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim rhetoric tied 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 was re-elected to The 56th New York State Senatorial District, defeating Gates’ former police chief, Jim VanBrederode. Cooney, who was adopted from a Calcutta orphanage and raised by a single mother in Rochester, made history in 2020 as the first Asian American elected to state office in North Carolina. New York State. During his first year in office, he authored more than 50 bills. Cooney holds a juris doctorate 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 New York State Assembly, representing District 36. On October 23, he announced his candidacy for mayor of New York City, challenging incumbent Mayor Eric Adams, who faces 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 leading progressive voice in New York politics, influenced, he said, by U.S. Sen. 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 close race. Mamdani represents Queens neighborhoods like Astoria and Ditmars-Steinway.

Jennifer Rajkumar was re-elected to New York State Assembly, representing District 38 in southern Queens. She has served in the Lower House in Albany since 2021 and made history as the first South Asian woman elected to state office in New York. Rajkumar, 41, has championed several important initiatives, including successfully advocating for Diwali to be recognized as a public school holiday and creating the New York 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 Representative Nima Kulkarni was re-elected to Kentucky House of Representatives for District 40. She received 10,293 votes, unopposed after Republicans failed to nominate a candidate. That victory came despite a legal challenge from Dennis Horlander, the former state representative whom Kulkarni unseated in 2018. Horlander argued that his candidacy was invalid because one of the witnesses on his filing documents 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 the Kentucky state legislature. Born in India, she moved to the United States at age six and became a prominent advocate for immigrants’ rights in the Kentucky House.

Ranjeev Puri was re-elected to Michigan House of Representativessecuring his seat in District 24 for a third term. Puri, a Democrat, currently serves as House Majority Whip and chairs the Transportation Appropriations Subcommittee. Before entering politics, Puri was a community organizer and worked in financial consulting, before 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 The Ohio State University and an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

Kesha Ram Hinsdale, Vermont State Senator was re-elected for her third term, obtaining 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, from the age of 20. 22. Born to a Jewish mother and a Hindu father, Ram Hinsdale grew up in Los Angeles where his parents owned an Irish pub. The 38-year-old holds a master’s degree in public administration from the Harvard Kennedy School.

Unopposed:

Democrat Reuben D’Silva was re-elected to Nevada State Assembly for District 28, unopposed. First elected in 2022, D’Silva, 38, was born in Mumbai and immigrated to the United States as a child. He holds master’s degrees from the University of Pennsylvania and Yale University.

State Senator Nikil Saval was re-elected in 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 co-editor of n+1a literary magazine based in Brooklyn and which has written 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 grew out of Bernie Sanders’ 2016 presidential campaign. Born in Los Angeles to parents from Bangalore, Saval grew up in West Los Angeles. He holds a BA from Columbia College and a Ph.D. in English from Stanford University.

Lost:
Democrat Anna Thomas led a close race against Republican incumbent Joe Emrick for the 137th District seat in the Pennsylvania State House of Representatives. Emrick defended his seat, receiving 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 only lost by a narrow margin of 703 votes. Thomas is a member of the Bethlehem Township Planning Commission and once again threw down a tall order, but was unsuccessful.

Running for Pennsylvania’s 18th Legislative District, Democratic challenger Anand Patel was defeated by incumbent Republican state Rep. KC Tomlinson. Tomlinson received 55.7% of the vote, a total of 17,835 votes, while Patel received 44.3%, with 14,190 votes.

Democrat Minita Sanghviwho ran for the 44th New York State Senate district, lost to Republican Jim Tedisco by about 25,000 votes.