New York, March 18 (IANS) Raja Krishnamoorthi, a moderate Democrat member of the House of Representatives but a strong critic of President Donald Trump, narrowly lost the Illinois primaries for the party’s Senate nomination.
While counting was continuing, the media projected his main rival, Illinois Lieutenant Governor Juliana Stratton, as the winner Tuesday night.
At 10 p.m. local time in Illinois, three hours after the polls closed, Stratton was ahead of him by about 6 per cent with about 85 per cent of the votes counted.
The winner of the Democratic Party primary is assured of victory in the November general election running against a Republican in the bright blue state where former Kamala Harris outperformed Trump by 11 per cent in the 2024 presidential election.
With the primary loss, Krishnamoorthi failed in his ambition to become the second Indian American to serve in the Senate, after Harris, who went on to become the vice president and the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate.
Krishnamoorthi, a member of the House of Representatives since 2017, ran a heavily financed insurgent campaign against Stratton, the preferred candidate of the state Democratic Party establishment.
She had the backing of the state's powerful billionaire Governor J.B. Pritzker and Senator Tammy Duckworth.
Representative Robin Kelly, another African American woman like Stratton, came third in the race for the nomination to succeed Democrat Dick Durbin, who decided not to run again.
The primary was cast by some commentators as a contest of wills between Krishnamoorthi and Pritzker, who is running for re-election to a third term, and positioned his trusted lieutenant, Stratton, against Krishnamoorthi.
Pritzker, an heir to the Hyatt hotel empire, spent $5 million of his personal fortune to back her in a primary that recorded high spending by both sides.
A company that tracks ad spending reported that about $29 million was spent on ads backing Krishnamoorthi, while it was about $16 million for Stratton.
While Pritzker’s largesse for Stratton became an issue in the election, Krishnamoorthi’s backing by Fairshakes, a political action committee backed by digital and cryptocurrency interests, also sparked controversies.
It was because Fairshake spent money on ads backing Kelly, which was seen as an effort to split African American votes to favour Krishnamoorthi, even though he was not the direct beneficiary of the spending.
Krishnamoorthi also received about $250,000 from the Indian American Impact Fund, a political action committee of the community.
Krishnamoorthi made opposition to Trump’s policies a central plank of his campaign, most recently ramping up opposition to what he called “unauthorised war with no end in sight” in Iran.
He voted against Trump’s Iran War in a resolution in the Senate that had the support of members of both parties, but failed to pass.
He has also backed legislative moves to undo some of Trump’s actions against welfare programmes.
With the already high prices rising further, fueled by the Iran conflict, the economy and affordability were among his targets.
Born in New Delhi, Krishnamoorthi came to the US as a three-month-old infant when his father brought his family over as he pursued higher education -- and the American Dream.
The immigrant background fit in with a central issue in the election -- Trump’s immigration crackdown that brought his Operation Midway Blitz to the streets of Chicago and led to the arrests of about 1,600 people, many under controversial circumstances.
Krishnamoorthi proclaimed in a campaign ad, “I’m an immigrant myself”, adding, "That’s why stopping Trump and ICE’s attacks on our communities is deeply personal to me.”
He called for ending the Trump version of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency’s operations and reforming it.
Stratton has called for abolishing it entirely.
Krishnamoorthi will be giving up his House seat when his term ends, bringing down the membership of the six-member so-called “Samosa Caucus” of Indian Americans in Congress -- unless new members win in November.
--IANS
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