Kamala Harris, the likely Democratic nominee for the US Presidency, holds a significant 19-point lead over her Republican opponent Donald Trump in favorability among Indian Americans, according to internal polling from the Harris campaign.
These findings were shared on Wednesday in a memo by Harris campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon, providing an update on the overall state of the presidential race. The data covered a wide range of topics, including the favorability ratings among Asian Americans, encompassing Indian, Japanese, Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean, and Filipino communities.
The poll was conducted internally on July 10, just 11 days before President Joe Biden ended his campaign under Democratic pressure and endorsed Harris for the top spot. She is now considered the de facto party nominee.
This internal poll assessed the favorability ratings of Biden, Trump, Harris, and Nikki Haley, the former US Ambassador to the UN and also of Indian descent like Harris, among Asian Americans. The results showed that 54 percent of Indian Americans had a “very favorable” to “somewhat favorable” view of Vice President Harris, a substantial 19-point advantage over Trump’s 35 percent. Harris also led Haley by 21 points but was slightly behind Biden, who had a 55 percent favorability rating.
The head-to-head matchup between Biden and Trump highlighted a significant decline in Biden’s support within the community. Only 46 percent of Indian Americans indicated they would vote for Biden if the election were held at the time of the survey, while 29 percent preferred Trump. Additionally, 20 percent were either undecided or refused to answer.
This marks a sharp drop from 2020 when a Carnegie Endowment for International Peace survey showed that 72 percent of Indian Americans planned to vote for Biden, compared to 22 percent for Trump. This decline likely reflects a general lack of enthusiasm for Biden’s second term despite his favorable perception.
The Harris campaign’s internal poll also revealed that 55 percent of Indian Americans intended to vote for Democratic Senate candidates, and 52 percent for Democratic House candidates. However, the Republican party has made some gains, with 29 percent planning to vote for Republican Senate candidates and 31 percent for Republican House candidates.
The US Indian American population ranges from 4.16 million to 4.4 million, making up about 1.4 percent of the more than 333 million US population. Out of these, only 2.62 million are US citizens, with 1.9 million registered voters, representing 0.82 percent of all registered voters in the country. Despite these seemingly small numbers, the community’s impact is significant.
Virginia, once a solid Republican state, has become reliably Democratic largely due to its substantial population of Indian Americans and other immigrants in the northern region near Washington. The community also plays a pivotal role in swing states, which decide presidential elections by narrow margins—Biden won Wisconsin by just a 0.63 percent margin in the last election.
O’Malley Dillon emphasized in the memo that the 2024 race between Harris and Trump is expected to be “tight,” noting that every vote will count in such close contests.
Television stars Mindy Kaling and Poorna Jagannathan, along with Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal, were prominent figures at the virtual launch of South Asian Women for Harris on July 24.
The event drew around 9,000 women, despite being organized through word of mouth within three days following Vice President Kamala Harris’s announcement to run for the Democratic presidential nomination. Harris’s campaign has swiftly garnered $126 million in donations in under 72 hours and secured the necessary pledged delegates and 38,000 volunteers for the nomination.
During the two-hour launch, participants raised over $250,000, setting a record for a Zoom event. Venu Gupta, one of the organizers, emphasized the critical role of women voters, stating, “It’s going to take every woman voter in this country to win this election. We’re not running for office: we’re running for our rights.”
The event featured a panel of seasoned political activists, including Vanita Gupta, former US Associate Attorney General; Reshma Saujani, founder of Girls Who Code; and Rohini Kosoglu, Deputy Assistant to the President and Domestic Policy Advisor to the Vice President in the Biden-Harris administration. The panel was moderated by Mini Timmaraju, president of NARAL, a pro-choice organization. Saujani praised Harris, calling her the “mom’s candidate.”
Actress and producer Mindy Kaling, who is also a single mother of three, kicked off the event. She expressed her admiration for Harris’s boldness, saying, “Culturally, I was raised to keep my head down and not make a stir. I’m so glad to see that Kamala Harris has done the exact opposite throughout her career.” Kaling also commended Harris’s staunch pro-choice position, stating, “We need abortion care, not tax cuts for millionaires.”
Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal, representing Washington state and a Congress member since 2017, highlighted her and Harris’s election to the Senate and House on the same night in 2016, when Donald Trump won the presidency. Jayapal recalled Trump’s subsequent Muslim ban and her efforts to prevent deportations at the airport.
Jayapal introduced a bill to repeal the Muslim ban in the House and encouraged Harris to introduce it in the Senate. They have collaborated on multiple bills, including those supporting domestic workers’ rights, universal childcare, and abortion access. Jayapal, an early advocate for a cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas conflict, admitted uncertainty about Harris’s stance on the issue but noted Harris’s compassion.
Poorna Jagannathan expressed hope that Harris would push for a cease-fire and a permanent resolution to the Israel-Hamas conflict, stressing its importance to young voters. “We cannot afford not to talk about Gaza,” she emphasized.
Neeru Khosla, founder of the CK12 Foundation, was a surprise guest at the event. Her organization has educated over 265 million low-income children worldwide using a unique AI-based model. Khosla, whose husband Vinod Khosla is a notable venture capitalist, had hosted a fundraiser for Biden in May.
At her daughter Anu’s request, Neeru spoke at the event, expressing optimism and admiration for Harris. “Kamala is intelligent, she’s trained, and she wants to do the job. This is a very optimistic time,” she said, mirroring the positive sentiments shared in the Zoom chat.
Kiran Jain, who interviewed Khosla, remarked, “This election feels like it will be won via WhatsApp,” highlighting the significant role of digital communication in the campaign.
For many who claim Indo-Caribbean heritage, Vice President Kamala Harris’ spotlight is the perfect chance to dive into the community’s lesser-known past: where indigenous faiths and cultural traditions found more in common than not.
(RNS) — A standard feature in any biography of Kamala Harris is the fact her parents — one a Hindu from India, the other a Baptist from Jamaica — met at the University of California, Berkeley, where they were both students in the 1960s.
In this sense the vice president and presumptive Democratic nominee embodies a heritage shared by millions across the Caribbean basin and the Afro-Caribbean diaspora, many of whom are now talking about the sudden possibility that the next U.S. president could be of Indian and Jamaican heritage, and a person who claims to “know the lyrics to nearly every Bob Marley song” to this day.
Indians first came in numbers to the Caribbean in the early 19th century, when the British Empire brought them west as indentured servants, mostly to the islands of Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago and Barbados, as well as Guyana and Suriname on the northeast shoulder of South America.
Indian Hindus, who at the time would not have defined themselves as Hindus, brought their spiritual practices with them, according to Alexander Rocklin, assistant professor of religious studies at Kenyon College and author of “The Regulation of Religion and the Making of Hinduism in Colonial Trinidad.” Those practices went on to influence the existing Catholic and Protestant Christians, Muslims and devotees of African spiritualities.
“The various groups that were living in a lot of these colonies, which were very cosmopolitan, were interacting with one another,” said Rocklin. “They were exchanging ideas, exchanging culinary traditions, exchanging cultural forms. And so they were also then participating in one another’s religious lives as well.”
In his research on 19th- and 20th-century Trinidad, Rocklin found clear evidence of Hindus worshipping the Virgin Mary as a Hindu goddess, visiting with African Obeah practitioners for their remedies against evil spirits, and celebrating Muharram, a Muslim holiday that for many was seen as simply “Indian.”
Though indentured servants lived in the same barracks that once held slaves, the British occupiers awarded them freedom of religion, as long, said Rocklin, as it resembled something colonizers would recognize. Indo-Caribbean Hindus thus began to fashion worship services with pundits who gave sermons and congregations, dressed in their “Sunday best,” that sang bhajans or Hindu worship songs in place of hymns.
“It was not seen as hypocritical for people to cross over lines, and for communities to come together and celebrate, but also engage in healing and devotion to to deities that were exclusively identified as being Hindu,” said Rocklin. “People were interested in living together in a way that the British colonizers couldn’t really even contextualize.”
Shawn Binda, a Canadian Hindu of Trinidadian origin, launched Hindu Lifestyle, his YouTube channel, in 2017, sensing the need to explain Hinduism’s history in Western society, especially to second-wave immigrants who want to maintain their ties in a “non-Hindu world,” he said. Binda’s research shows that Hinduism even had a part in the foundations of Rastafari, the religion that began in Jamaica and may be considered one of its most indelible cultural exports.
Binda, who lives in Toronto, points to the two faiths’ traditions of vegetarianism, spiritual use of ganja, or marijuana, and a shared philosophy referred to in Rastafarai as “I n I,” and in Hinduism as “oneness with the Divine.” Leonard Howell, known as the first Rasta, was called Gangunguru Maragh, or Gyan Gan Guru Maharaj, by his followers, using the Hindi words for “knowledge,” “teacher” and “king.”
While Binda said it would be “incomplete” to say Hinduism gave birth to Rastafarianism or other existing traditions, these overlaps signify deep interaction, if not direct influence.
“Rastafari took that concept of the divinity within everyone, and just kind of made it more tangible,” he told Religion News Service. “It’s one thing to say you recognize the Divine within all. But now you take that, and the language that you use meaning like ‘One Love,’ it actually makes it more simple, more real, and something that that we can all learn from.”
In one video, Binda declares that Marley, the great global champion of Rastafarai, was analogous to a sadhu, a type of Hindu holy man who dons dreadlocks and forgoes material possessions for spiritual enlightenment.
In today’s global community, some people of Caribbean origin are finding their way back to India, where Hinduism began. Beauty influencer Lana Patel said her Trinidadian-Gujurati and Jamaican-Punjabi family is made up of Rastafarians, Hindus, Catholics, Christian converts and Spiritual Baptists, the latter a West Indian religion that draws from African beliefs and American Baptist practices.
When Patel’s parents came to the United States in the 1970s, she said, they found it difficult to find their place within America’s racial lines, which did not exist back home.
“I think being Caribbean is being this beautiful, rich melting pot of culture,” she said. “And I think we aren’t so much caught up in labels and more caught up in just existing and being happy in our existence. Everyone is just Caribbean. It’s not like, ‘Oh yeah, you’re the white man, you’re the Black man, you’re the brown man.’ Everyone is one, and they love each other.”
Patel, a trans woman, found herself drawn to her late grandfather’s Hindu traditions as she got older, rejecting the Christian homeschooling, conversion therapy and “fire and brimstone” approach to hell and heaven that so explicitly excluded her. Patel, who now lives in Los Angeles, credits her family with welcoming her Hindu identity, however, with curiosity and open arms.
She feels the same warmth when she visits her parents’ homelands. “Going to a Gujurati mandir (temple) just felt so peaceful and serene,” she said. “I just had this ‘aha’ moment, because I felt like I spent so much time running from myself. My grandfather passing was the wake-up call I needed to return back to myself and get in touch with my roots.”
Binda hopes that more conversations about Hinduism’s global reach will dispel the myth that the faith is limited to one ethnicity or geographical location.
Comparing Hinduism to “an open source architecture,” he said, “Hinduism can be embraced by by any and everyone, whether that means they identify as being Hindu or not.”
In the small village of Thulasendrapuram, located approximately 300 kilometers from Chennai, India, and 14,000 kilometers from Washington DC, Kamala Harris’ maternal heritage is a source of immense pride. The village, renowned for its deep-rooted cultural ties, is currently adorned with a large banner of Kamala Harris, who is 59 years old. This display is a symbol of local admiration and celebration.
To mark her achievements, villagers have been engaging in special prayers to their local deity, hoping for her continued success. Notably, both Ms. Harris and her maternal grandfather have contributed to the village temple, further strengthening their connection to the community. In addition, sweets are being distributed among the villagers, a gesture that reflects their shared joy and excitement.
The residents of Thulasendrapuram have been closely following the US presidential race, particularly after Joe Biden’s withdrawal, which has heightened interest in Ms. Harris as a potential nominee. Krishnamurthi, a retired bank manager, expressed the village’s sentiment by saying, “It is not an easy feat to be where she has reached in the most powerful country in the world.” He continued, “We are really proud of her. Once Indians were ruled by foreigners, now Indians are leading powerful nations.”
This pride is especially palpable among the women of the village, who view Ms. Harris as a symbol of female empowerment and potential. Arulmozhi Sudhakar, a local body representative, shared, “Everybody knows her, even the children. ‘My sister, my mother’ – that is how they address her.” He added, “We are happy that she has not forgotten her roots and we express our happiness.”
The enthusiasm in Thulasendrapuram is reminiscent of the celebrations that took place when Ms. Harris was inaugurated as Vice President. Villagers took to the streets with fireworks, posters, and calendars to honor her historic achievement. The festivities included a communal feast featuring traditional South Indian dishes such as sambar and idli, which Ms. Harris’ relatives have mentioned as her favorites.
Kamala Harris’ connection to India is deeply rooted. Her mother, Shyamala Gopalan, was a prominent breast cancer researcher from Tamil Nadu who moved to the United States in 1958. Shyamala’s parents were originally from Thulasendrapuram. Reflecting on her mother’s legacy, Ms. Harris posted on social media, “My mother, Shyamala, came to the US from India alone at 19. She was a force – a scientist, a civil rights activist, and a mother who infused a sense of pride in her two daughters.”
After her mother’s passing, Ms. Harris, along with her sister Maya, traveled to Chennai to immerse their mother’s ashes in the sea, adhering to Hindu customs, as reported by The Hindu newspaper.
Ms. Harris hails from a distinguished family. Her maternal uncle, Gopalan Balachandran, is an academic, while her grandfather, PV Gopalan, made significant contributions as an Indian bureaucrat and expert on refugee resettlement. PV Gopalan also served as an advisor to Zambia’s first president in the 1960s.
Rajaraman, an emeritus professor of theoretical physics at Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi and a former classmate of Ms. Harris’ mother, remarked on her prominence, saying, “She [Kamala] has been a prominent figure for quite a while now. It’s not a great surprise. Something like this was on the cards for many years.” Prof. Rajaraman recounted reconnecting with Shyamala in the mid-1970s during a visit to Berkeley, where he remembered, “Shyamala was there. She gave me a cup of tea. These two children [Kamala and her sister Maya] were there. They paid no attention.” He added, “Both of them were enterprising. There was positivity in her mother, which is there in Kamala also.”
In Thulasendrapuram, anticipation is building as the villagers await the official announcement of Ms. Harris’ candidacy. Natarajan, the temple priest, noted that “Kamala’s chithi [Tamil for mother’s younger sister] Sarala visits this temple regularly. In 2014 she donated 5,000 rupees ($60; £46) on behalf of Kamala Harris.” He expressed optimism, stating, “Natarajan is confident that their prayers will help Ms. Harris win the election.”
Though thousands of miles separate Thulasendrapuram from the US, the villagers maintain a strong sense of connection to Ms. Harris’ journey. They harbor hopes that she might visit their village someday or that Thulasendrapuram could be mentioned in one of her speeches.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is set to address a joint session of the U.S. Congress in an effort to strengthen support for his country’s ongoing conflict with Hamas in the Gaza Strip. This address comes at the invitation of Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, who represents the Republican Party’s steadfast backing of Israel.
Despite this, more than 30 Democratic lawmakers, including prominent figures like former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, have declared they will not attend the speech. Netanyahu arrived in the U.S. on Monday and is scheduled to speak before Congress on Wednesday. Following his address, he will meet with President Joe Biden and Vice-President Kamala Harris. Additionally, Netanyahu will hold a separate meeting with Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump. In a post on Truth Social, Trump expressed anticipation for the meeting: “Looking forward to welcoming Bibi Netanyahu at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida,” using the common nickname for the Israeli prime minister.
Netanyahu has stated his intention to “present the truth about our just war” during his Congressional address. This visit marks his first trip to the U.S. since the conflict with Hamas commenced nearly 10 months ago. The Israeli Prime Minister is under increasing international and domestic scrutiny regarding his management of the war.
In May, International Criminal Court Prosecutor Karim Khan requested arrest warrants for Netanyahu, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and three Hamas leaders, citing alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes. Both Israel and Hamas reacted strongly against this action. Furthermore, last week, the International Court of Justice declared that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories was “illegal,” a conclusion that Israel has rejected.
Protests are anticipated in Washington, with thousands of pro-Palestinian demonstrators expected to participate in a “day of rage.” Speaker Johnson has cautioned against protests within the House chamber, warning of potential arrests “if we have to do it.”
On Tuesday, approximately 200 Jewish American peace activists staged a protest within the Capitol building complex. They were eventually removed by police; the protesters wore red T-shirts with slogans such as “Not in our name” and “Jews say stop arming Israel.”
Netanyahu’s visit comes amid a strained relationship between his administration and the U.S., particularly with prominent Democrats. President Biden has increasingly criticized Israel as the war persists and the death toll in Gaza rises. Biden, who exited the presidential race on Sunday, faces mounting pressure from his party’s progressive wing to urge Israel to curtail its military actions in Gaza. Vice-President Harris, the likely Democratic nominee, will not assume her role as Senate president during Netanyahu’s speech.
Over 30 Democratic legislators have chosen to skip Netanyahu’s address. Senator Dick Durbin from Illinois, one of the dissenters, expressed his support for Israel but indicated he would not support the current Israeli leader. Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders also announced his decision to boycott the speech, condemning the “total war” being waged by Netanyahu’s government in Gaza. Sanders criticized Netanyahu’s policies, stating, “His policies in Gaza and the West Bank and his refusal to support a two-state solution should be roundly condemned.”
Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen commented, “It sends a terrible message to bring him here now to address a joint session of Congress.”
The conflict began when Israel launched a campaign in Gaza in response to a severe attack on southern Israel on October 7, which resulted in approximately 1,200 fatalities and 251 hostages. Since then, Gaza’s health ministry reports that over 39,000 people have died in the region, though these figures do not distinguish between civilians and combatants.
The World Health Organization expressed significant concern on Wednesday about the potential for a polio outbreak in Gaza following the discovery of traces of the virus in wastewater.
A recent poll reveals that a majority of respondents, 56 percent, view Vice President Kamala Harris, 59, as “mentally sharp and able to deal with challenges,” whereas 37 percent disagree with this assessment. In comparison, only 22 percent of voters consider President Joe Biden, who is 81, to have similar attributes. The poll, which carries a 3 percent margin of error, underscores a notable disparity in public perception between the two prominent figures.
On Sunday, Biden announced the end of his reelection campaign, citing concerns over his age and health as significant factors influencing his decision. He has endorsed Kamala Harris as his successor. Biden had faced mounting pressure from both Republicans and members of his own party, particularly following a poorly received performance in the first presidential debate last month. During this debate, Biden struggled with stammering and failed to effectively counter former President Donald Trump’s attacks, which included numerous false claims.
Trump and his MAGA allies had previously been vocal in criticizing Biden’s age, frequently deriding him as “Sleepy Joe” and questioning his cognitive abilities. They insinuated that he “can’t put two sentences together and he’s in charge of nuclear warfare.”
In response to Biden’s announcement, House Speaker Mike Johnson immediately criticized the Democrats’ move. Johnson suggested that the GOP would challenge the legality of the party’s switch to Kamala Harris as the nominee. “I think they’ve got legal hurdles in some of these states,” Johnson told CNN on Sunday. “And it’ll be litigated, I would expect, on the ground there.”
Despite these challenges, Harris has quickly mobilized her campaign, raising over $100 million from Sunday afternoon to Monday evening. According to a survey by The Associated Press, she has also secured enough delegate support to secure the Democratic nomination for the 2024 presidential election.
In a recent Reuters/Ipsos poll, Harris holds a slim 2-percentage-point lead over Trump, with 44 percent of respondents supporting her against the Republican candidate, who garnered 42 percent. When voters were presented with a hypothetical ballot that included independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Harris led Trump by 42 percent to 38 percent, an advantage that falls outside the margin of error.
Kennedy, who is favored by 8 percent of voters in the poll, has yet to qualify for the ballot in several states ahead of the November 5 election.
Polls conducted on July 15 to 16 showed Harris and Trump tied at 44 percent, while a July 1 to 2 poll had Trump leading by a single percentage point. Both surveys had a margin of error of 3 percent.
Trump’s campaign has dismissed any rise in Harris’ support as temporary, attributing it to the media coverage surrounding her new candidacy. “That bump is likely to start showing itself over the next few days and will last for a while,” said Tony Fabrizio, a pollster with Trump’s campaign, in a memo circulated to reporters, according to Reuters.
A Morning Consult poll conducted after Biden’s exit from the race shows Trump with a two-point lead over Harris, receiving 47 percent support compared to Harris’s 45 percent. However, this poll also indicates a narrowing gap between Trump and the Democrats. Previously, a survey by Morning Consult conducted between July 15 and 17 showed Trump leading Biden by four points, with Trump at 46 percent and Biden at 42 percent. The more recent poll, which surveyed 4,001 registered voters, has an unweighted margin of error of +/- 2 points.
Kamala Harris has already gained significant momentum in her bid for the Democratic nomination, securing enough delegates, igniting a fundraising surge, and revitalizing a party that seemed headed for defeat. Despite this strong start, Harris is just beginning a challenging mission, facing intense future attacks from Republican nominee Donald Trump in an unpredictable election season.
In a powerful speech at campaign headquarters in Wilmington, Delaware, Harris, with Biden calling in to confirm the transition, laid out her case against Trump, framing the election as a choice between two distinct futures for the country. Earlier, she presided over an event at the White House, positioning herself in the imagery of the presidency. Most notably, she received the endorsement of Nancy Pelosi, whose maneuvering was crucial in ending Biden’s stalled reelection bid. Pelosi’s endorsement quickly led other congressional leaders to rally behind Harris, solidifying her position as the Democratic nominee.
By Monday evening, Harris had more than the 1,976 pledged delegates needed to secure the nomination, according to CNN’s delegate estimate. Following the freezing of donor cash that forced Biden out, Harris raised over $100 million between Sunday and Monday evening, with 62% of the donors being first-time contributors. Her swift consolidation of power was evident in her multi-hour phone blitz to Democratic power players on Sunday, indicating a well-prepared but secret operation that effectively quashed hopes for alternative candidates.
Despite this strong start, danger signs are apparent. There’s a saying in Washington that a presidential candidate’s best day is often the one following their announcement. Harris, now playing at the highest level, must sustain this new momentum in a party that seemed headed for defeat just days ago. Even if she secures the Democratic nomination, she will face Trump’s aggressive campaign. Trump is known for his misogynistic and racially charged rhetoric, likely making the upcoming months some of the most contentious in modern election history.
The pressure on Harris from Democrats is immense. While she has shown signs of improving her political skills, this has never been her strength. Party leaders are not only relying on her to prevent a new era of conservative rule that could undo the achievements of the Biden and Obama presidencies, but also to lead a campaign with the foundational goal of saving democracy from Trump. Harris has just over 100 days to achieve this.
Trump initially seemed thrown off by the sudden shift in Democratic candidates. However, his campaign quickly adapted, previewing a blistering assault on Harris. Trump’s co-campaign managers, Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita, depicted her as the “copilot” of Biden’s failures, criticizing her record on immigration and her historically low approval ratings. “She makes just as much sense as Joe Biden. By that we mean, none at all,” they stated.
Harris’ push for the Democratic nomination is a significant twist in a race that has defied convention, with the oldest president in US history launching a reelection bid only to step back. The Republican nominee, Trump, is another unpopular figure who attempted to subvert US democracy after losing the last election and is a convicted felon. Despite this, Trump was celebrated at the GOP convention as a strongman hero following an assassination attempt.
Harris has moved swiftly to unify the party, with key power brokers avoiding a divisive nomination fight. Governors, senators, and state delegations quickly rallied behind her, reflecting a party desperate to prevent a second Trump term. As Wisconsin Democratic Party Chairman Ben Wikler noted, there has been a “flowering of unity” since Biden stepped down. Harris’ unique coalition may replace the frayed one that hindered Biden’s campaign. A CNN poll indicated that Harris outpolled Biden among women, independents, and movable voters in a hypothetical matchup against Trump, crucial voting blocs in swing states.
Harris’ rise has redefined the 2024 race, shifting Democrats from defense over Biden’s age to a generational transformation with a candidate nearly 20 years younger than the 78-year-old Republican nominee. Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, during her GOP primary campaign, had suggested that the first party to “retire their 80-year-old” candidate would win the election, a move Democrats have now made. “I promise you, you’re never going to hear Donald Trump ask his opponent to take a cognitive test again,” Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell of California said.
New Hampshire Republican Gov. Chris Sununu predicted a significant change in the race with Biden’s replacement, suggesting that Democrats might be rewarded by independents for their decision. Harris on Monday began using the symbolic imagery of the White House to enhance her reputation, welcoming National Collegiate Athletics Association championship teams, a duty typically performed by presidents but taken on by Harris as Biden neared the end of his Covid-19 isolation. She praised Biden, saying he had “surpassed the legacy of most presidents who have served two terms,” without directly mentioning the election.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, expected to soon endorse Harris, stated, “Vice President Kamala Harris is off to a great start with her promise to pursue the presidential nomination.”
However, Harris faces significant challenges. Democrats are betting on a candidate who is unpopular and has not yet proven she can perform better than Biden in key swing states. If Harris stumbles, Democrats risk being seen as imposing another unsuitable candidate. Additionally, it remains to be seen whether voters’ frustrations were primarily due to Biden’s age or broader economic concerns. Trump, despite his flaws, has often led polling on key issues like immigration, national security, and the economy. Harris could suffer if Biden’s legacy is an electoral handicap.
Trump’s team is intensifying their attacks, portraying Harris as complicit in a supposed White House cover-up of Biden’s health. GOP vice presidential nominee JD Vance claimed, “Kamala Harris lied about it. My Senate Democratic colleagues lied about it. The media lied about it. Every single person who saw Joe Biden knew that he wasn’t capable of doing the job, and for three years they said nothing, until he became political deadweight.”
Harris also faces the challenge of overcoming historic barriers. Sixteen years ago, many doubted the country would elect a Black man, but Barack Obama proved them wrong. Now, Harris, a Black woman and Asian American, faces an even higher historic barrier.
Vice President Kamala Harris is poised to become the Democratic presidential nominee, barring any unforeseen events. Harris gained support on Monday, following President Joe Biden’s announcement that he would not seek reelection.
Numerous potential Democratic contenders have endorsed Harris, including Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, California Governor Gavin Newsom, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, and Illinois Governor JB Pritzker. Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) also expressed her support for Harris on Monday, having withheld endorsement during her initial reaction to Biden’s decision to step aside.
The key question now is whether Harris can defeat former President Donald Trump. Here are the primary arguments for and against her candidacy:
Democrats Are Finally United and Excited
The Democratic Party is eager to move past recent divisions and low spirits. The party was thrown into turmoil after Biden’s poor debate performance in Atlanta on June 27, leading to intense internal strife between his critics and supporters. The rapid consolidation around Harris indicates a strong desire to move forward. With the Democratic National Convention in Chicago less than a month away and the election just over 100 days away, the party is eager to rally behind her.
Harris’s candidacy generates excitement for several reasons. She is the first woman, Black person, and person of South Asian descent to serve as vice president and is now aiming for the highest office. Her campaign’s momentum is also reflected in the flood of donations, with the Harris campaign, the Democratic National Committee, and related fundraising committees raising $81 million in just 24 hours.
Age Issue Shifts to Democrats’ Favor
Concerns about age and mental sharpness ended Biden’s political career at 81. In contrast, Harris is 59, removing a significant vulnerability for Democrats. This shift puts the spotlight on the 78-year-old Trump, who has had his own gaffes, including confusing Pelosi’s name with his former primary rival Nikki Haley and mistakenly referring to Biden as Obama on several occasions.
A poll by ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos following the Atlanta debate revealed that 85% of adults believed Biden was too old for a second term, while 60% thought the same about Trump. This is a vulnerability Harris can exploit.
Trump’s Unpopularity
Despite media focus on the resilience of Trump’s MAGA base, he remains broadly unpopular nationwide. According to the polling average from The Hill and Decision Desk HQ (DDHQ), Trump is viewed unfavorably by about 53% of Americans and favorably by only 42%. These figures have slightly improved following an assassination attempt against him in Butler, Pa., on July 13, but his unpopularity remains a significant factor.
Trump lost the popular vote in both 2016 and 2020. His presidency was marred by the Capitol riot on January 6, 2021, a civil trial where he was found liable for sexually abusing writer E. Jean Carroll, and a criminal trial with 34 felony convictions. Democrats believe they have a strong chance if they can frame the November election as a referendum on Trump, a goal more achievable with Harris as the nominee.
Harris Leads on Reproductive Rights
Since the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade in June 2022, Harris has been at the forefront of the Biden administration’s defense of reproductive rights, making her the leading voice on the Democrats’ strongest campaign issue. The pro-abortion rights stance has consistently won statewide votes on related ballot measures, and even Trump acknowledges this as a crucial factor in the Democrats’ unexpectedly strong performance in the 2022 midterms. Harris’s potential to become the first female president adds intensity to the abortion debate.
Harris’s Low Favorability Ratings
During the peak of Biden’s crisis, some supporters argued that Harris might not fare better. She trails Trump by almost 3 percentage points nationally, according to The Hill/DDHQ polling average. This performance is not significantly better than Biden’s at the time of his withdrawal, though Biden’s standing was rapidly declining.
Harris’s favorability ratings are worse than Trump’s. She is nearly 20 points underwater in the DDHQ average, viewed negatively by about 56% of Americans and positively by only 38%. This indicates that Democratic enthusiasm for Harris is not mirrored among centrist voters. An Economist/YouGov poll last week showed that more than twice as many independents viewed her unfavorably compared to favorably, at 58% to 26%.
Harris’s 2020 Campaign Failures
Critics of Harris often cite her underwhelming 2020 campaign. She launched her bid for the Democratic nomination in January 2019 with a large rally in Oakland, but her campaign never gained significant traction. The high point came during a July 2019 debate when she criticized Biden for his past opposition to school busing. Harris eventually dropped out before the Iowa caucuses. Skeptics worry that the same issues—questions about her authenticity, failure to connect with voters, and internal staff conflicts—could resurface this fall.
Potential Bias Against Harris
A sensitive issue in Harris’s candidacy is whether she could be hindered by voter prejudice. Some question whether the nation is ready to elect a Black woman as president. Proponents argue that Obama’s presidency broke racial barriers, and women’s political prominence has significantly increased. However, notable female politicians, such as Hillary Clinton in 2016, have fallen short, raising concerns about lingering misogyny.
Supporters claim that many attacks on Harris, including criticisms of her laugh, rhetoric, and dancing, reflect a double standard compared to white or male counterparts. These criticisms contribute to her low approval ratings.
Harris’s Association with Immigration Issues
Immigration remains one of the Democrats’ biggest vulnerabilities heading into November, and Harris is closely associated with it. Unauthorized southern border crossings have declined recently but reached an all-time high last December. Trump has blamed Harris for the “worst border ever” due to her role as “border czar,” though CBS News clarified that this title does not officially exist and that the Department of Homeland Security primarily handles immigration.
Harris was tasked with addressing the root causes of Central American migration under Biden, a complex and perhaps unsolvable issue. Her strong association with immigration is a weakness that Trump and the GOP are likely to exploit to their advantage.
While Harris’s candidacy brings renewed excitement and unity among Democrats, she faces significant challenges, including her low favorability ratings and the potential for voter bias. Her leadership on reproductive rights and the shift in the age debate offer advantages, but her past campaign struggles and association with immigration issues could pose hurdles in the upcoming election.
Messages of appreciation and solidarity for U.S. President Joe Biden surged following his unexpected announcement on Sunday that he is withdrawing from the 2024 presidential race and endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democratic candidate. This marked the second major political upheaval in the U.S. in just over a week, coming on the heels of the July 13 assassination attempt against former President Donald Trump at a Pennsylvania rally, which saw international leaders rallying around him as the Republican nominee.
Biden’s decision to exit the race came after intense pressure, largely fueled by his poor performance in the CNN presidential debate last month. On Sunday, Biden confirmed his stance to remain a one-term president, triggering a wave of tributes from global allies who expressed their gratitude for his leadership.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who recently met with Biden in Washington, expressed his respect for the president’s choice and anticipation for continued collaboration throughout his remaining term. Starmer stated on X, “I know that, as he has done throughout his remarkable career, he will have made his decision based on what he believes is best for the American people.”
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau praised Biden as a “true friend” to Canada, highlighting his dedication and love for his country. “He’s a great man, and everything he does is guided by his love for his country,” Trudeau wrote on X.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese remarked that Biden deserved acknowledgment for “once again not putting himself forward first, but giving his first consideration to being what he believes is in the interests of the United States of America, as he has done his whole public life.” Albanese continued, “President Biden has dedicated his life to public service, and that is something that deserves much respect.”
New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon also paid tribute to Biden, noting on X, “President Biden has dedicated his life to public service, and that is something that deserves much respect.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky lauded Biden for his “unwavering support” amidst the ongoing conflict with Russia. Zelensky stated on X, “Many strong decisions have been made in recent years and they will be remembered as bold steps taken by President Biden in response to challenging times. We will always be thankful for President Biden’s leadership.”
In contrast, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov expressed that Moscow was “not too surprised” by Biden’s withdrawal. Peskov told reporters, “In recent years, what has been happening in the United States has taught us not to be surprised by anything.” He added, “This topic should concern American voters, but not us,” emphasizing the importance of Russian-American relations, which are currently at a historic low.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu affirmed that Israel will remain “an irreplaceable ally” of the U.S. regardless of the election outcome. Speaking from Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport before heading to the U.S., Netanyahu expressed gratitude to Biden “for the things he did for the state of Israel, both in the war and during his years of service as a senator, as vice president and as president.”
President Isaac Herzog labeled Biden as a “true ally of the Jewish people,” and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant praised Biden’s “steadfast backing, especially during the war,” in posts on X. Biden has been a strong supporter of Israel’s actions in Gaza following Hamas’ attacks on October 7 but has faced criticism from Netanyahu over humanitarian aid and civilian casualties.
Irish Taoiseach Simon Harris described Biden as “a proud American with an Irish soul,” appreciating his “global leadership” and “friendship.”
Other leaders commended Biden for his challenging decision to withdraw from the race. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz wrote on X, “My friend Joe Biden has achieved a lot: for his country, for Europe, for the world. His decision not to run again deserves respect.”
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro praised Biden’s “correct” choice to prioritize his family and health, wishing him “health and a long life” during a rally on Sunday.
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk acknowledged Biden’s difficult decisions, noting on X that these choices have contributed to a safer world and stronger democracy. “I know you were driven by the same motivations when announcing your final decision. Probably the most difficult one,” Tusk wrote.
South Korean and Japanese leaders opted not to comment on the internal U.S. political situation but emphasized the importance of continued collaboration with the White House. Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida noted, “I recognize that President Biden’s decision is based on his desire to make the best possible political decision. The Japan-US alliance is the cornerstone of our nation’s diplomatic security, and we will continue to monitor it closely.”
South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol’s office stated that they will “continue to work closely with the US to further develop the South Korea-US global comprehensive strategic alliance.”
Philippine President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. described Biden’s withdrawal as a sign of “genuine statesmanship” and thanked him for his unwavering support for the Philippines amid a challenging period. “We thank him for his constant and unwavering support for the Philippines in a delicate and difficult time,” Marcos wrote on X. The Philippines, a treaty ally of the U.S., has faced increasing tensions with Chinese vessels in the South China Sea.
Chinese leader Xi Jinping had not issued an official statement by Monday morning. However, “Biden dropping out of the election” was the leading topic on Weibo, China’s equivalent to X, with related discussions, including those about Kamala Harris and Trump’s assassination attempt, accumulating over 400 million views.
Chinese social media users speculated eagerly about the prospect of a female U.S. president while others believed Trump would win regardless of the Democratic candidate. One Weibo user remarked, “The shot was definitely a good deal for Trump!” Another user observed, “That one shot didn’t kill Trump but dropped Biden,” with another describing the U.S. political situation as “a total mess.”
US President Joe Biden concluded his reelection bid on Sunday after growing skepticism among Democrats about his mental sharpness and his ability to defeat Donald Trump, endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris as his successor.
In a statement on X, Biden, 81, announced that he will continue serving as President and Commander-in-Chief until his term concludes in January 2025. He also plans to address the nation later this week.
Biden expressed, “It has been the greatest honor of my life to serve as your President. And while it has been my intention to seek reelection, I believe it is in the best interest of my party and the country for me to stand down and to focus solely on fulfilling my duties as President for the remainder of my term.”
Initially, Biden’s statement did not include an endorsement for Harris. However, shortly after, he expressed his support for her, stating, “My fellow Democrats, I have decided not to accept the nomination and to focus all my energies on my duties as President for the remainder of my term. My very first decision as the party nominee in 2020 was to pick Kamala Harris as my Vice President. And it’s been the best…”
Harris, 59, would make history as the first Black woman to head a major party’s presidential ticket. The potential challenge she may face is whether other prominent Democrats will vie for the nomination, or if the party will opt to open the field for new contenders.
Biden’s decision comes after increasing pressure from Democratic leaders and lawmakers, spurred by his underwhelming performance in a June 27 debate against Trump, 78. His struggles to articulate clear sentences overshadowed Trump’s falsehoods and shifted focus onto Biden’s suitability for another term.
Biden’s interview shortly after the debate, where he dismissed concerns and stated he would be content losing to Trump if he felt he had given his all, did little to quell apprehensions. His gaffes at a NATO summit, where he confused Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy with Russian President Vladimir Putin and mistakenly referred to Harris as “Vice President Trump,” only heightened fears.
Adding to the turmoil, Biden was diagnosed with COVID-19 for a third time just days before his announcement, leading to a shortened campaign trip to Las Vegas. Over 10% of congressional Democrats publicly urged him to withdraw.
Biden’s resignation from the reelection race is unprecedented for a sitting president since Lyndon Johnson in March 1968, leaving his replacement with under four months to campaign.
Should Harris be nominated, it would represent a significant risk for the Democratic Party: presenting its first Black and Asian American woman as a candidate in a nation with a history of electing one Black president and no women presidents over more than two centuries.
Biden, who was the oldest president ever elected when he defeated Trump in 2020, had positioned himself as a transitional figure to usher in a new generation of Democratic leadership. This led to some speculation that he would serve only one term. Nevertheless, he pursued a second term, believing he was the Democrats’ best chance to defeat Trump once more amid doubts about Harris’s experience and popularity. However, Biden’s age became increasingly evident, with his gait appearing unsteady and his childhood stutter occasionally resurfacing.
His team had hoped that a strong performance in the June 27 debate would address age-related concerns, but it only exacerbated them. A Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted post-debate revealed that around 40% of Democrats believed he should exit the race.
Donors began withdrawing support, and Harris’s backers began to consolidate. Key Democrats, including former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, advised Biden that he could not win the election.
Despite initially resisting calls to step down, Biden engaged in damage control through calls, meetings with lawmakers, and rare TV interviews, but it was insufficient. Polls indicated Trump’s lead was expanding in crucial battleground states, leading to fears of a potential Democratic defeat in the House and Senate. On July 17, California Representative Adam Schiff called for Biden to withdraw.
Biden’s departure sets the stage for a significant contrast between the Democrats’ likely new nominee, Harris—a former prosecutor—and Trump, who at 78 is two decades older and faces multiple criminal charges related to his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results. Trump is scheduled to be sentenced in September in New York for trying to cover up a hush-money payment.
Earlier this year, Biden secured the Democratic nomination for president with little opposition despite concerns about his age. However, his unwavering support for Israel’s military actions in Gaza alienated some party members, particularly younger, progressive Democrats and voters of color.
Many Black voters felt Biden had not sufficiently addressed their needs, and overall enthusiasm for a second Biden term was low. Prior to the debate with Trump, Biden was trailing in some national polls and in key battleground states necessary for a victory on November 5.
Harris had been tasked with reaching out to these voters in recent months.
During the Democratic primary, Biden accumulated over 3,600 delegates for the convention in Chicago, surpassing the 1,976 needed to secure the nomination. If the Democratic Party does not alter its rules, delegates pledged to Biden will enter the convention “uncommitted,” thus allowing them to vote for his successor.
The party also has “superdelegates,” influential senior officials and elected leaders whose support, although limited on the first ballot, could become decisive in subsequent rounds.
In 2020, Biden triumphed over Trump by securing pivotal battleground states such as Pennsylvania and Georgia, and won the popular vote by over 7 million votes, capturing 51.3% compared to Trump’s 46.8%.
The Democratic Party faces a historic decision if it turns to Vice President Kamala Harris as its presidential candidate, navigating a complex landscape of racism, sexism, and her past political challenges in an attempt to defeat Republican Donald Trump.
President Joe Biden, 81, declared on Sunday that he would end his campaign for reelection but remain in office for the remainder of his term. Concurrently, he endorsed Harris in a post on X, formerly Twitter. Biden stated, “My very first decision as the party nominee in 2020 was to pick Kamala Harris as my Vice President. And it’s been the best decision I’ve made,” and continued, “Today I want to offer my full support and endorsement for Kamala to be the nominee of our party this year.”
This decision follows mounting pressure from Democratic lawmakers and donors who questioned Biden’s ability to endure another four-year term due to concerns about his mental and physical stamina.
In over two centuries of American democracy, the electorate has chosen only one Black president and never a woman, raising questions even among some Black voters about whether Harris can shatter these enduring barriers. LaTosha Brown, a political strategist and co-founder of the Black Voters Matter Fund, acknowledged this challenge, saying, “Will her race and gender be an issue? Absolutely.”
Harris would face significant obstacles if promoted to the top of the ticket. With less than three months to campaign, she must unite the party and secure financial support. Despite these hurdles, many Democrats view her potential candidacy with optimism. At 59, Harris is notably younger than Trump and stands out as a leader in the party on abortion rights, an issue that resonates with younger voters and the progressive base. Advocates believe her candidacy would energize these voters, consolidate Black support, and leverage her strong debating skills to challenge Trump effectively. Brown pointed out, “That to me is reflective of America’s past. She is reflective of America’s now and future,” contrasting Harris’s candidacy with Trump and his vice presidential running mate, Senator J.D. Vance, both of whom are white.
Nonetheless, Harris’s initial years in office and brief 2020 campaign for the Democratic nomination have left some Democrats apprehensive. There are concerns about her ability to overcome the historical baggage of racial and gender discrimination in the U.S.
In a July 15-16 Reuters/Ipsos poll, Harris and Trump were tied at 44% support each, following an assassination attempt against Trump. In the same poll, Trump led Biden 43% to 41%, within the margin of error. Harris’s approval ratings are slightly higher than Biden’s, with 38.6% of Americans approving of her compared to 50.4% disapproving, whereas Biden has 38.5% approval and 56.2% disapproval.
Representative Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, a Biden supporter, expressed skepticism about Harris’s potential support, stating on Instagram, “If you think that there is consensus among the people who want Joe Biden to leave that they will support Kamala – Vice President Harris – you would be mistaken. There’s no safe option.”
Barack Obama remains the only Black president elected in the U.S., and Hillary Clinton was the sole woman to lead a major party’s presidential ticket, losing to Trump in 2016. Harris, the first woman and the first Black and South Asian person to serve as vice president, has faced and weathered unfair attacks related to her race and gender, according to her supporters. Jamal Simmons, a former aide to Harris, noted, “America has a history of racism, sexism, so I’m sure that will factor into this conversation, factor into her campaign,” adding that there is potential for Black voters and women to rally behind her candidacy, benefiting from her race and gender.
Harris has greater name recognition compared to other potential Democratic candidates, such as California Governor Gavin Newsom and Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer. Simmons argued, “While she has flaws and faults like everyone, we know those flaws and faults, so you can build a campaign with clarity. Any other candidates are complete unknowns.”
A former Democratic lawmaker, who spoke anonymously, viewed Harris as a bigger risk due to her record rather than her race, citing early staff turnover and limited progress on key issues. The former lawmaker remarked, “I think the race thing is just a compounding factor or an exacerbating factor,” expressing a preference for another candidate despite recognizing the risks.
Critics have accused Trump of employing racist and sexist rhetoric. In 2020, he claimed Harris, a U.S. citizen born in California, did not qualify to be a vice presidential candidate. At a recent rally in Michigan, Trump derided Harris’s mannerisms, calling her “Laughing Kamala” and criticizing her laugh as “crazy.” Trump’s campaign dismissed these criticisms as “classic disinformation” and highlighted Trump’s strong polling among African Americans, according to senior adviser Jason Miller.
Trump’s previous “birtherism” claims against Obama, which falsely questioned his birthplace, garnered significant traction among far-right activists and his nationalist base. Cliff Albright, co-founder and CEO of Black Voters Matter Fund, referred to this pattern as “birtherism 2.0” regarding Harris. Nadia Brown, director of the women’s and gender studies program at Georgetown University, emphasized the persistence of reluctance to accept women, particularly Black women, in prominent leadership roles, stating, “Patriarchy is a hell of a drug.”
Despite these challenges, Harris’s standing within the party has improved due to her vocal defense of reproductive rights following the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. Biden credited her efforts with helping to avert a significant Republican wave in the midterm elections, and Harris has actively campaigned on abortion rights.
Harris could potentially inherit Biden’s strong support among Black voters, who were crucial to his 2020 nomination. However, if the Democratic Party coalesces around her, she may face criticism from voters who believe the party concealed Biden’s weaknesses. Gina Gannon, a 65-year-old retiree from Georgia who voted for Trump in 2016 and Biden in 2020, expressed dissatisfaction, saying, “I’m kind of done with the Democrats. So many knew about Biden’s condition and hid it. Kamala was part of that.”
President Joe Biden’s potential departure as the Democratic presidential nominee doesn’t guarantee Vice President Kamala Harris will succeed him. While Harris has been Biden’s political heir since 2020, doubts persist about her viability as a presidential candidate. Concerns that hindered her initial White House bid and her vice presidency continue to affect her chances.
Social media is rife with clips of Harris’s awkward sound bites, and while some Democrats praise her efforts on abortion rights, Republicans are poised to scrutinize her work on the southern border. Despite the growing calls for Biden to step down, many Democratic officials and donors question the wisdom of endorsing Harris as his replacement. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez emphasized this sentiment, stating, “If you think there is a consensus among the people who want Joe Biden to leave, that they would support Vice President Harris, you would be mistaken. They’re interested in removing the whole ticket.”
The central issue for Democrats is identifying a candidate who can effectively challenge former President Donald Trump and maximize success in the House and Senate. Harris’s polling isn’t significantly better than Biden’s. An NBC News poll showed Trump leading both Biden and Harris by a two-point margin, reflecting Harris’s uncertain political viability.
John Morgan, a Democratic megadonor, warned against hastily supporting Harris, stating, “Be careful what you wish for.” He expressed concerns that Harris might come across as inauthentic, a sentiment echoed by many fundraisers and donors who are looking to back a winning candidate.
Proponents of Harris argue her numbers could improve with a formal campaign, bolstered by Biden-Harris campaign funds. She shows strength among Black voters, according to a POLITICO/Morning Consult poll, and has focused on outreach to younger voters. However, being a Black woman in politics poses additional challenges due to sexism and racism. At 59, Harris could address concerns about the party leader’s age, contrasting with the 78-year-old GOP nominee.
Aimee Allison, founder of She the People, highlighted Harris’s past success, stating, “I’ve heard it this week, it’s a perennial thing — ‘Can she win?’ I say, ‘Yes, she already has.’” Allison criticized the persistent underestimation of Harris, which she believes is a common issue for Black women in politics.
Some Democrats fear darker outcomes, particularly after an assassination attempt on Trump. Renay Grace Rodriguez, president of the Los Angeles Stonewall Democratic Club, expressed concern, “If Biden steps down, she should be the one to receive the delegates. But I also know how this country behaves toward women and women of color, and I worry for her that there would be a bullet that would not miss.”
Harris’s failed 2020 presidential run looms large, affecting current perceptions of her prospects. Despite her rapid rise through California politics, her presidential campaign struggled with unclear ideology and inconsistent positions, notably on single-payer health care. Her campaign also faced internal issues, lacking a clear strategy and leadership, leading to her early exit from the race.
This history has created skepticism among voters and donors. As one House Democrat noted, “‘Kamala, eh that’s not good. In the primary four years ago, she didn’t last very long.’” A spokesperson for Harris defended her record, emphasizing her dedication to working with Biden.
Harris has faced challenges with staff turnover in every office she’s held, and her vice presidency has been no different. Issues with her first chief of staff and a dysfunctional office environment strained her relationship with the White House. Persistent leaks and complaints about mismanagement have marred her tenure, though improvements were noted with the appointment of a new chief of staff, Lorraine Voles.
Harris’s relationship with Biden’s inner circle has been rocky since her 2020 primary debate jab at Biden. Despite initial reservations, Biden’s political advisers, including future White House chief of staff Ron Klain, supported her as a valuable addition to the ticket. However, lingering doubts from senior aides and Biden’s family have persisted.
Harris’s role as vice president has involved taking on politically fraught tasks, such as immigration. Despite her objections, she was tasked with addressing the root causes of migration from Central America, leading to GOP attacks labeling her the “border czar.” However, the fall of Roe v. Wade allowed Harris to pivot to a position of strength as the administration’s point person on abortion rights.
Harris’s efforts on abortion rights, particularly ahead of the 2022 midterms, helped ease tensions with the White House. She has become a key figure in Biden’s reelection bid, focusing on reproductive health. Christina Reynolds, senior vice president of EMILY’s List, praised Harris, saying, “She’s a terrific messenger on the issue that we believe is going to win Democrats this election, which is abortion.”
Harris’s prosecutorial skills have been a strength, as seen in her prominent Senate Judiciary Committee exchanges. These skills have become a key part of her appeal, especially in contrast to Biden’s debate performance against Trump. With Biden’s effectiveness in question, Harris’s sharp attacks on Trump have garnered attention from Democrats looking for a candidate who can change the dynamics of the race.
Harris’s ability to unite the party remains uncertain. While female Democratic donors and organizations are preparing to support her candidacy, Harris would need to win over constituencies that Biden successfully united in 2020. Her lack of longstanding congressional relationships is a disadvantage compared to Biden.
Ocasio-Cortez’s comments highlight the divide within the party, with many progressives, including the liberal House “squad” and Sen. Bernie Sanders, continuing to support Biden. However, Harris has been more willing to call for restraint from Israel in the conflict with Hamas, a stance that may appeal to progressives.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren broke from the progressive camp, stating, “Biden is our nominee … Harris is ready to serve.” Harris’s role as the White House messenger on abortion rights has been a significant aspect of her tenure, and her ability to connect the fight for abortion rights with broader issues of freedom has resonated within the party. As Democrats contemplate their future leadership, Harris’s ability to unify the party and address its diverse needs remains a critical question.
Usha Chilukuri Vance, the wife of Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance, and their children have faced backlash due to their Indian heritage. Chilukuri Vance, whose parents are Indian immigrants, and RNC speaker Harmeet Dhillon, a Sikh of Indian descent, are being targeted with anti-Asian hate from far-right individuals online. This surge in hateful posts, following Vance’s nomination, criticizes his interracial marriage and expresses fears about increased Indian immigration, citing the “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory. These posts have garnered hundreds of thousands of views according to engagement figures.
Stop AAPI Hate, an advocacy group tracking anti-Asian hate incidents, condemned the attacks. The group stated that the wave of hate has exacerbated the “heightened levels of fear and anxiety Asian Americans and immigrants are currently experiencing across the country leading up to this year’s presidential election.” They further noted, “In the midst of an inflamed political climate, we continue to see the targeting of South Asians across parties, including ongoing questioning of VP Kamala Harris’ electability.”
Since 2020, Stop AAPI Hate has recorded thousands of potential hate-motivated incidents, coinciding with the rise in anti-Asian sentiment at the start of the coronavirus pandemic.
The backlash against the Vance family occurs as former President Donald Trump called for national unity following an assassination attempt at a Pennsylvania rally last weekend. Trump remarked, “The discord and division in our society must be healed. We must heal it quickly. As Americans, we are bound together by a single fate and a shared destiny. We rise together. Or we fall apart,” during his speech on the final day of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.
This call for unity contrasts sharply with Trump’s usual rhetoric, often criticized as “inflammatory” and “divisive,” particularly regarding race and immigration. However, Trump quickly reverted to his typical stance, declaring, “The greatest invasion in history is taking place right here in our country,” referring to undocumented migrants at the U.S. border.
Despite this assertion, newly released figures from the CBP show a continuous decline in encounters at the southern border for the fourth consecutive month. Trump continued, “They are coming in from every corner of the Earth, not just from South America, but from Africa, Asia, and the Middle East — they’re coming from everywhere, and this administration does nothing to stop them.”
In contrast, the CBP reports that recent measures, including President Biden’s June 4 executive order limiting asylum access between ports of entry, have led to a more than 50% reduction in border encounters over the past six weeks.
JD Vance has previously criticized Trump and his supporters for their racial rhetoric, which forms the backdrop of the current backlash against his wife and children. In a 2016 interview with POLITICO, Vance remarked, “the Trump people are certainly more racist than the average white professional,” warning that Trump’s rhetoric would cause white people to “become more racist over time.”
Vance also stated in a 2016 PBS Newshour interview, “there is definitely an element of Donald Trump’s support that has its basis in racism or xenophobia.”
Originally a “Never Trump guy,” Vance has since changed his stance, citing Trump’s “many successes in office.” He has now joined Trump on the Republican ticket for the upcoming presidential election in November. Vance’s alignment with Trump began around 2021, when he started praising Trump’s presidency and apologizing for his past criticisms. Last month, Vance told Fox News anchor Bret Baier, “Look, I was wrong about Donald Trump. I didn’t think he was going to be a good president, Bret. He was a great president, and it’s one of the reasons why I’m working so hard to make sure he gets a second term.”
President Biden announced on Sunday, July 21st that he is dropping out of the 2024 presidential race, a seismic event that will leave Democrats scrambling to select his replacement just weeks before their convention.
“While it has been my intention to seek reelection, I believe it is in the best interest of my party and the country for me to stand down and to focus solely on fulfilling my duties as president for my term,” Mr. Biden posted in a statement on social media.
The president’s historic withdrawal throws the 2024 race − already roiled by a shocking attempt on Trump’s life − into uncertain territory, with Vice President Kamala Harris seen as the Democrat best placed to take Biden’s place atop the party’s ticket.
Biden made the announcement from his home in Rehoboth Beach, Del., where he’s self-isolated since testing positive for COVID-19 Thursday night.
“It has been the greatest honor of my life to serve as your President,” Biden said in a written statement. ” Biden did not immediately endorse a successor. He said he would speak to the nation later this week to provide more detail about his decision.
It marks an extraordinary turn for Biden, who for three weeks remained defiant in the face of growing calls from Democratic lawmakers that he withdraw after a disastrous June 27 debate with Trump raised scrutiny over the president’s mental fitness.
Biden’s exit came after he received bleak warnings from Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Democratic House Leader Hakeem Jeffries that his candidacy could lead to massive losses for Democrats in the Senate and House.
More than 30 congressional Democrats called for Biden to bow out, and former President Barack Obama reportedly relayed similar fears to Democratic allies about Biden’s prospects of beating Trump. Democratic donors from Hollywood to Wall Street also came out against Biden continuing his reelection bid.
Former President Donald Trump, who was officially nominated by the Republican party on Thursday night, told CNN after the decision that Mr. Biden is the “worst president by far in the history of our country,” but he said that he thought if Vice President Kamala Harris is the nominee, she would be easier to beat than Mr. Biden.
Before winning the White House in 2020, Mr. Biden called himself a “bridge” to a new “generation of leaders,” causing many to wonder if he would only serve one term. In the aftermath of the debate, he explained that his thinking had changed, and the divisiveness in the country led him to believe only he could defeat Trump.
In the weeks since the debate, the president tried to push back, insisting in a series of public appearances and meetings with Democratic elected officials that he was committed to staying in the race. “I’m not going anywhere,” he vowed. But even longtime allies began to urge him to change course.
The pressure eventually became insurmountable, with top Democrats in Congress telling Mr. Biden that he should step aside and allow a replacement to face off against Trump in November.
The decision upends the 2024 election less than 110 days before Election Day, with Democratic National Committee members now tasked with choosing an alternative nominee to take on Trump, whose polling lead has swelled while Democrats have fought internally.
Vice President Harris is now the frontrunner to replace Biden as the Democratic nominee, but the party’s bench of Democratic governors could also be in the mix including Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania and Gavin Newsom of California.
Biden becomes the first incumbent president not to seek reelection since Lyndon B. Johnson who, in 1968 amid national unrest and turmoil within the Democratic Party over the Vietnam War, stunned the nation with his decision not to seek a second full term.
As former President Donald Trump seeks to return to the White House, Ohio US Senator JD Vance has been selected as his vice president nominee. James David Vance is an American author, venture capitalist, and politician who has served as the junior US Senator from Ohio since 2023. He is a member of the Republican Party and is the party’s nominee for the post of Vice President in the 2024 election.
But what intrigues Indians is another matter. The wife of Vice President Nominee Vance Usha Chilukuri is of Indian origin. Biden has Indian-born Kamala Harris as his vice president. I don’t know how history will change. It is not wrong for the Indian of the time to dream that this Usha Chilukuri may become “another Kamala” of the future.
Mr. Vance’s wife, Usha Chilukuri, now realizes that Vance has many credentials and a deep connection with Indian values and culture. Usha Vance, a litigation lawyer at a national firm, is the daughter of Indian immigrants from Andhra. Born as Usha Chilukuri, she forged a career in law, clerking for Supreme Court Justices John Roberts and Brett Kavanaugh before Mr Kavanaugh was nominated to the bench. Mr. Vance, a 39-year-old Republican serving his first term in the Senate, was born and raised in Middletown, Ohio. He joined the Marines and served in Iraq, then graduated from Ohio State University and Yale Law School. He also worked as a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley.
Mr. Vance made a name for himself with his 2016 bestseller “Hillbilly Elegy,” published when Trump was first running for president. Even among the working class and among rural white voters, The book made Mr. Vance famous as a New York businessman who helped Trump win the presidency. “Hillbilly Elegy” also introduced Mr. Vance to the Trump family. Donald Trump Jr. loved the book and got to know Mr. Vance when he went to start his political career. And Trump, now 78, developed a great friendship and equation with Vance, half his age. Our Indian lady helped Mr. Vance organize his thoughts about social decay in rural white America, which inspired Vance’s best-selling memoir, “Hillbilly Elegy.” In the past, she has made some rare appearances with Mr. Vance when he sought an Ohio Senate seat.
Ms. Usha grew up in the suburbs of San Diego, California. Some of Usha’s academic achievements should also be known. After four years of intensive extracurricular activity at Yale, he continued his studies as a Gates Fellow at Cambridge, mingling with leftist and liberal groups. He holds a bachelor’s degree in history from Yale University and a master’s degree in philosophy from Cambridge University. No kidding, she was a registered Democrat in 2014. Ms. Usha and J.D. Vance first met at Yale Law School and were married in Kentucky in 2014, with a Hindu priest presiding over the special ceremony. The couple has three children: Ivan (born 2017), Vivek (born 2020) and Mirabel (born 2021). Usha Chilkuri is a Hindu, and her husband is a Roman Catholic. Vance was born James David Bowman in Middletown, Ohio. His grandfather and grandmother raised him.
“Ushaji knows Indian culture and India. She can help her husband navigate the great relationship between the USA and India, and Indians can hope for something.”
Shalabh “Shalli” Kumar felt immense pride on Monday evening as Donald Trump finally revealed his anticipated choice for his running mate in the 2024 election.
But it wasn’t just the mention of Ohio Senator JD Vance that triggered Kumar’s reaction. For the founder of the Republican Hindu Coalition and chair of the Hindu and Indian Coalition of the Republican National Committee, it was the inclusion of Vance’s wife, Usha, that resonated deeply—a 38-year-old Yale graduate and daughter of Indian immigrants.
“Hindus have come a long way,” Kumar remarked, reflecting on the community’s growth in population and political influence since his arrival in the United States in the late 1960s. “It’s about time,” he added, emphasizing that the Vances “are going to represent a new generation of Americans.”
The 2024 presidential campaign has witnessed significant participation from politicians of South Asian descent. Former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy competed in the Republican primaries, while Vice President Kamala Harris seeks reelection alongside President Joe Biden.
During the Republican National Convention’s second night, both Haley and Ramaswamy unequivocally endorsed the Trump-Vance ticket in prime-time speeches. On Wednesday night, Usha Vance will introduce her husband as Trump’s running mate, marking her inaugural step in the Trump-Vance campaign.
As Asian Americans assume a more prominent role in the 2024 presidential campaign, political activists from both major parties express hope that this increased representation will lead to greater engagement with a historically overlooked voting bloc.
Chintan Patel, executive director of Indian American Impact, hailed the “phenomenal” rise of South Asian representation in politics. “Since Impact’s inception in 2016, the number of elected officials within South Asian communities has grown from approximately 50 to over 300 nationwide, including, notably, Vice President Kamala Harris,” Patel told CNN, underscoring the pivotal role of representation in reshaping community aspirations.
Sources within the Trump campaign believe that Usha Vance has the potential to appeal to minority voters. Asian Americans constitute the fastest-growing racial or ethnic group among eligible U.S. voters, according to a recent Pew Research Center analysis, with their numbers increasing by approximately 2 million since 2020—an equivalent to Nebraska’s population.
Despite their growing electoral influence, both political parties acknowledge the need for greater efforts to connect with this critical voting bloc. Christine Chen, executive director of APIAVote, emphasized the scars left by the events of 2020, including the rise in anti-Asian hate and the challenges posed by the pandemic, which underscore the importance of political engagement and representation.
“We’re also trying to reemphasize to the campaigns and the parties that they really need to do a better job in terms of reaching out to our growing base of (the) electorate, but also doing it early,” Chen stated.
Last week, APIAVote, in collaboration with AAPI Data, Asian Americans Advancing Justice, and the AARP, released the 2024 Asian American Voter Survey, highlighting key issues driving Asian American voters. While 90% of those surveyed expressed intent to vote in the upcoming elections, half reported no contact from the Democratic Party, and 57% said the same about the Republicans—an ongoing concern for Chen.
Patel stressed that, like any voting bloc, Asian Americans seek substantive commitment to issues that matter most to them, such as the economy, education, inflation, and immigration.
Immigration holds particular significance for many South Asian Republican voters due to the backlog affecting millions of Hindu and Indian Americans awaiting green cards, Kumar noted. Progressive Indian American voters, Patel added, also voice concerns over immigration policies outlined in Project 2025—a conservative blueprint that includes proposals for mass deportations.
Chen emphasized the ongoing work required to engage Asian American voters, many of whom are first-time immigrants, in understanding their potential impact on upcoming elections.
“It’s actually for us to protect a democracy,” she stated. “Everyone needs to participate. It’s no longer a democracy if only a few participate in the election process.”
Former President Trump’s 2024 rivals rejoined the fold on Tuesday, as former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis took the stage, highlighting a push for unity at the GOP convention. Despite this, unity messaging was often overshadowed by attacks from figures like Arizona Senate candidate Kari Lake and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who targeted Democrats.
Nonetheless, the event has proceeded smoothly as Trump’s GOP promotes a positive message following his near-assassination. Here are five takeaways from the second day of the convention:
Republicans Strive to Overcome Divisions
Even though Trump easily secured the presidential nomination, divisions persisted within the GOP during the primaries, with some voters casting protest ballots against him. However, these conflicts have been temporarily set aside following the near-fatal shooting of Trump. Speakers emphasized unity for both the party and the nation, with prominent appearances by Trump’s top rivals, Haley and DeSantis.
Haley’s presence was significant, as she initially stated she wasn’t invited to the convention. This changed after the attempted assassination, leading her to fully endorse Trump. “I’ll start by making one thing perfectly clear,” Haley said. “Donald Trump has my strong endorsement.”
DeSantis, who had already backed Trump after exiting the race, reaffirmed his support, emphasizing his alignment with Trump. Their appearances, along with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) announcing Kentucky delegates for Trump, showcase Republicans rallying around their nominee while President Biden deals with his party’s turmoil.
“We’re not all going to agree on everything, and that’s OK,” said Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.), a moderate Republican. “You have to allow for robust debate and discussion. And ultimately, though, you have to find compromise and commonality and forge a path forward, and I think that’s what [Haley] was speaking to.”
However, underlying tensions remained. In a notable moment, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) taunted former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), reflecting internal Republican animosities even as they present a united front.
Unity Messaging Undermined by Attacks
Despite calls for unity across party lines following the shooting, some Republicans used their speeches to attack Democrats. Lake, running against Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego for the Senate, blamed Democrats for various problems, including “the fake news” that obscures “disastrous Democrat policies.”
Cruz accused Democrats of prioritizing votes from undocumented immigrants over protecting children, eliciting boos from the crowd. “Today, as a result of Joe Biden’s presidency, your family is less safe,” Cruz said.
The media also faced criticism. Former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson accused the press of “abus[ing] the public trust,” which led to more boos. “They divide us,” Carson claimed. “Our government has been no better.”
These remarks were striking given the convention’s theme of uniting Americans after the violent attack and the broader call to lower political temperatures.
Frequent References to Vice President Harris
Vice President Harris was frequently mentioned, reflecting discussions about possibly replacing Biden at the top of the Democratic ticket. Haley criticized Harris’s handling of the border situation while hinting at the prospect of her leading the country. “Let me remind you: Kamala had one job. One job. And that was to fix the border. Now imagine her in charge of the entire country,” Haley said, prompting boos.
This rhetoric aligns with Trump allies’ increased attacks on Harris amid talks of a potential ticket swap, which Biden has rejected. Pennsylvania Senate Republican nominee David McCormick questioned Harris’s leadership, asking, “Who’s ready to retire Joe Biden and send border czar Kamala Harris back to California?”
Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird targeted Harris on policing issues, criticizing her reform calls. “They treat police like criminals and criminals like victims,” she said, referring to Biden and Harris.
Blaming Biden and Harris for the country’s problems was a recurring theme, likely to continue in GOP messaging through November. “You are worried that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are hurting our country because they are,” said Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-N.J.), a former Democrat.
Battleground Senate Candidates Appeal to the Base
Senate candidates from key battleground states addressed the convention, criticizing their Democratic opponents and appealing to the GOP base as the party aims to reclaim the Senate in November. Lake led chants of “build the wall,” blaming the Biden administration for border issues.
West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice (R) brought his bulldog “Babydog” on stage, predicting political outcomes with the popular pet. “Babydog says we’ll retain the House, the majority in the House. We’re going to flip the United States Senate. And overwhelmingly we’re going to elect Donald Trump and JD Vance in November,” Justice proclaimed.
Ohio Senate candidate Bernie Moreno (R) took a jab at rival Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown (D), suggesting it’s time for both Democrats “to go home.” Wisconsin Republican Senate candidate Eric Hovde called for national unity while blaming the media and the left for divisions.
“Instead of putting on just the blue jersey or the red jersey, we need to put on the red, white, and blue jersey and come together as Americans,” Hovde said, adding that Republicans will heal the country from divisions caused by the media and “left.”
These speeches energized the base, preparing them for competitive races in the fall.
Smooth Sailing for the Event
The Republican convention, now halfway over, has proceeded without significant issues. Speakers have generally stayed on message, praising Trump’s presidency and condemning the Biden administration for the country’s problems.
While some strayed from the unity message to attack Democrats, they consistently returned to the theme of voting for Trump. This contrasts with past conventions, such as in 2016 when Cruz told delegates to “vote your conscience” instead of rallying for Trump.
This time, Cruz began his remarks by “giving thanks to God Almighty” for Trump’s survival, a sentiment echoed by many speakers. The audience’s enthusiasm remained high despite the recent shooting, showing excitement each time Trump appeared. With two more days left, Republicans appear overwhelmingly satisfied with the convention’s progress.
Donald Trump has chosen Senator JD Vance of Ohio as his vice presidential running mate, putting an end to speculation over who would join him in challenging President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. Trump made the announcement on Monday via his Truth Social post, stating, “After careful consideration and recognizing the talents of many others, I have decided that Senator J.D. Vance of Ohio is best suited for the role of Vice President of the United States.”
Later that day, during the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Vance was formally confirmed as Trump’s running mate. This decision came shortly after Trump himself was confirmed as the GOP’s presidential nominee earlier in the proceedings.
Vance’s selection marks a significant elevation for the 39-year-old senator, who entered politics less than two years ago as a relative newcomer. It also symbolizes Vance’s shift towards aligning with Trump’s political ideology, a contrast to his earlier criticisms of the former president.
Vance gained national recognition with his bestselling memoir “Hillbilly Elegy” in 2016, which reflected on his upbringing in rural Ohio and provided insights into the culture and politics of Appalachia. Despite initial skepticism, the book established Vance as a sharp political commentator, particularly attuned to the perspectives of the White working class.
Prior to his Senate tenure, Vance worked in the private sector, notably with Mithril Capital and as the founder of his own venture capital firm, Narya, starting in 2019. His entry into the Senate came after a successful campaign in 2022, where he secured victory over Democrat Tim Ryan.
In an interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity, Vance recounted Trump’s call inviting him to join the ticket, quoting Trump as saying, “I believe you are the best person to assist me in governing and winning, especially in states like Pennsylvania and Michigan.” This decision excluded other prominent contenders like Senator Marco Rubio and North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum, according to NBC News.
The Biden campaign swiftly criticized Vance’s selection, alleging that Vance’s alignment with Trump’s agenda would harm the nation. Campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon asserted, “Vance will support Trump’s extreme MAGA agenda, even at the cost of breaking laws and harming American citizens.”
In response to Harris’s acceptance of a vice presidential debate invitation, Vance received congratulations from Harris herself via a message, NBC sources confirmed. Shortly after Vance’s selection was made public, his wife Usha Vance resigned from her position at the law firm Munger, Tolles & Olson.
Before entering politics, Vance had been a vocal critic of Trump, famously describing him as a “total fraud” and likening his political movement to a harmful drug in writings for The Atlantic prior to Trump’s 2016 election victory. However, Vance’s views evolved significantly during his time in politics, leading him to become one of Trump’s staunchest supporters.
In recent months, Vance has actively embraced his pro-Trump stance, attending rallies and defending Trump vigorously, particularly during Trump’s legal battles. Vance attributed Trump’s survival of an assassination attempt at a Pennsylvania rally to rhetoric from the Biden campaign, a claim that drew widespread criticism and calls for political restraint.
As a senator, Vance has taken controversial stances, including opposing U.S. aid to Ukraine amidst its conflict with Russia and voting consistently against legislation aimed at expanding federal abortion rights. His announcement as Trump’s running mate added further drama to a day already marked by significant Trump-related developments.
Earlier on the same day, a federal judge dismissed a criminal case against Trump, alleging illegal retention of classified documents and obstruction of government efforts to retrieve them.
In a recent NPR/PBS/Marist survey, President Joe Biden is shown leading former President Donald Trump by a narrow margin of 50% to 48% in a direct head-to-head matchup. However, when third-party candidates are included, Trump takes a slight edge, with Biden trailing by one point. These results are within the poll’s 3.1-point margin of error.
Trump has gained momentum, with Real Clear Politics’ poll tracker showing him ahead by 2.7 points, reflecting a 1.2-point increase in his favor since the debate. FiveThirtyEight’s tracker also indicates Trump leading by 2.1 points, marking a 1.9-point rise from June 27.
A poll conducted by ABC News/Ipsos/Washington Post and released on Thursday reveals that Biden and Trump are currently tied among registered voters. When Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is considered as an option, Trump leads by one point. This is seen as a positive outcome for Biden following the June 27 debate.
The poll highlights concerns about Biden’s age, with 67% of respondents believing he should withdraw from the race and 85% thinking he is too old to serve as president, up from 81% in April and 68% a year ago. Among Biden supporters, 54% think he should drop out, and 81% believe he is too old for another term.
Trump’s lead extends further in other polls. The latest Emerson College poll shows Trump ahead by three points over Biden, and Morning Consult’s weekly survey also indicates a two-point lead for Trump. A New York Times/Siena College survey conducted from June 28 to July 2 gives Trump a six-point advantage, representing a three-point swing in his favor since the previous poll, marking his widest lead in any poll by these groups since he began his first presidential campaign in 2015.
Similarly, a Wall Street Journal survey conducted after the debate finds Biden trailing Trump by six points, the largest gap recorded by Journal surveys since 2021 in a two-way matchup, showing a four-point increase in Trump’s lead since February. A CBS/YouGov post-debate poll taken in seven crucial battleground states shows Trump leading Biden by three points, reversing a one-point deficit from the previous month.
News Peg
Despite the increasing calls from 11 Democrats in the House, one in the Senate, several prominent pundits, and multiple major news outlets for Biden to reconsider his candidacy post-debate, Biden has firmly decided to stay in the race. However, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., indicated on Wednesday that Biden’s decision might not be final. Speaking on MSNBC, Pelosi said, “It’s up to the president to decide if he is going to run,” adding, “We’re all encouraging him to make that decision, because time is running short.”
Crucial Quote
“The question of how to move forward has been well-aired for over a week now. And it’s time for it to end,” Biden stated in a letter to congressional Democrats on Monday.
What We Don’t Know
It remains uncertain how potential replacement candidates would perform against Trump in November. Most polls suggest Vice President Kamala Harris, who is considered the most likely candidate to replace Biden if he steps down, would do better than other potential Democratic contenders like California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. Harris and Biden’s poll results against Trump are similar, with some surveys showing Harris performing slightly better and others showing Biden with a slight edge. However, the impact of months of campaigning by Harris or another candidate without her national recognition is unknown.
What To Watch For
Polls prior to the debate consistently indicated that Trump leads Biden in the seven key swing states that are likely to decide the election outcome. A May Cook Political Report survey showed Trump with a three-point lead on average in these states. Similarly, a May Bloomberg/Morning Consult poll found Trump leading Biden by four points across these battleground states. An April poll by the New York Times/Siena/Philadelphia Inquirer indicated Trump would win in five out of six swing states (Pennsylvania, Arizona, Michigan, Georgia, and Nevada), with Biden only ahead in Wisconsin.
Surprising Fact
In such a tight race, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s independent run could significantly impact the election outcome, although it is unclear in whose favor. A May Emerson poll found that Trump’s lead over Biden increases from two points to five when Kennedy Jr., independent candidate Cornell West, and Green Party candidate Jill Stein are included. Kennedy Jr. received 6% support, while 10% of voters were undecided. A May Fox poll showed a two-point increase in Trump’s lead with the three independents on the ballot. The Times/Siena/Inquirer survey found Kennedy Jr. attracts votes from key Biden supporters, securing 10% of voters in six battleground states in a five-way contest. His support rises to 18% among voters aged 18 to 29 and 14% among Hispanic voters. A recent Harvard CAPS/Harris poll shows Trump’s five-point lead remains unchanged with Kennedy Jr. on the ballot. Conversely, an April NBC poll found Biden trailing Trump by two points in a direct matchup but leading by two points when Kennedy Jr. and other third-party candidates are included.
Tangent
Polls consistently suggest that Biden and the Democratic Party have been losing support among crucial demographics, including Black, Latino, and younger voters, who previously largely supported the party. A May NPR/PBS/Marist survey indicated voters under 45 prefer Biden over Trump by just four points, and Biden leads among Gen Z/millennials by six points in a direct matchup. However, with third-party candidates included, the vote swings in Trump’s favor, by six points among Gen Z/millennials and eight points among voters under 45. The April Times/Siena/Inquirer poll also found Biden tied with Trump among Hispanic voters in six battleground states and trailing by four points among 18- to 29-year-olds in those states. These groups supported Biden with more than 60% in 2020. Biden also seems to be losing ground in Democratic strongholds like New York, where he is nine points ahead of Trump, according to a May Siena College survey, after beating Trump by 23 points in 2020.
Key Background
Biden and Trump are set for a historic rematch after securing their respective party nominations in March, ending the primary season earlier than usual. Polls show historically low voter enthusiasm, with both candidates having relatively low favorability ratings—below 45%. The NBC poll revealed that 64% of voters are “very interested” in this year’s election, a 20-year low. Trump has centered his campaign on his legal challenges, accusing prosecutors and judges of conspiring with Biden to damage his election chances, though there is no evidence to support this claim. Biden, on the other hand, has portrayed Trump as a threat to democracy, citing his role in the January 6 Capitol riots, and has criticized Trump for appointing Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe v. Wade. Polls show that voters consistently consider the economy, immigration, abortion, and inflation as top issues. The Times/Siena/Inquirer survey found a majority trust Trump over Biden to handle the economy, crime, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but trust Biden more on abortion.
Only 16% Of Indian Americans View Vice President Kamala Harris Very Favorably
Indian American support for President Joe Biden has plummeted over the past 4 years with just 46 percent saying they will vote for him, down from 65 percent in 2020, according to the 2024 Asian American Voter Survey released July 10 morning.
The survey was conducted by AAPI Data, and released jointly by APIA Vote, Asian Americans Advancing Justice, and the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP).
In an interview with New India Abroad ahead of the survey’s release, Dr. Karthick Ramakrishnan, founder of AAPI Data, said, “Among Indian Americans, Biden lost support between 2020 and 2024. But it’s not like (Republican Presidential nominee Donald) Trump gained that much among Indian Americans.”
“What we saw was a jump in the people say they want to vote for someone else. And a big jump among Indian Americans who say that they don’t know who they will vote for.”
“So what the data points to is a fair amount of dissatisfaction among Indian Americans who might have supported Biden in 2020, but are not satisfied with that choice in 2024. That said, Biden still beats Trump in a head-to-head match-up among Indian Americans and among Asian Americans more generally,” said Ramakrishnan.
46 percent of Indian Americans polled said they would vote for Biden, while 29 percent said they would vote for Trump. 5 percent said they would vote for another candidate, while 20 percent said they did not know.
In terms of political party affiliation, 47 percent of Indian Americans identify as Democrats, while 21 percent identify as Republicans. 25 percent of Indian American voters are Independent, while 5 percent are undecided, representing a significant bloc that could successfully be courted by either party.
The President’s perceived poor handling of the economy, including inflation, is a big issue for Indian American voters. And there is also dissatisfaction with his immigration policy. Some Democrats feel he’s not doing enough to protect immigrant rights, while others feel he has not done enough to stem the tide at the border.
In the past two weeks after a disastrous debate performance by Biden June 27, there has been increasing chatter for the President to drop out of the race. Ramakrishnan said Indian American support for Biden would likely remain about the same, if the survey was taken today.
Support for Trump has increased marginally, as Asian American voters feel he is better equipped to take on the failing economy and the migrant crisis at US borders.
Indian American support for Vice President Kamala Harris has also diminished, with just 16 percent of Indian Americans saying they view her very favorably, and 38 percent saying they view her somewhat favorably. 48 percent view her unfavorably, while 4 percent say they don’t know enough about her. Harris has been discussed as the obvious choice to lead the Democratic ticket should Biden choose to drop out.
“Harris is associated with Biden. So I think that accounts for some of that diminishment in support,” said Ramakrishnan, adding that perceptions of a poor performance on immigration may also have played a role. “It’s a far cry from what we saw in 2020, where you saw an outburst of pride among Indian Americans and South Asians. I think some of that novelty has likely worn off.”
“But looking ahead, if there is an opportunity for Harris to be a potential candidate for president this year, I think you’ll probably see another burst of activity and potentially another burst of pride.
Support for former Republican presidential hopefuls Nikki Haley and Vivek Ramaswamy were slightly higher among Indian Americans. “There may be such a thing as ethnic pride, but it does not hold a candle to partisanship, which is the biggest determinant of how Indian Americans will vote,” said Ramakrishnan.
Key issues for Indian Americans include: more restrictive gun laws, language access, family-based immigration, and climate change.
A new survey from a leading Democratic pollster shows President Joe Biden still in the running against Donald Trump, but facing increased risk of losing the election, while other top Democrats are gaining traction.
The national poll, conducted by Bendixen & Amandi following Biden’s problematic debate and shared exclusively with POLITICO, reveals Biden trailing Trump, 42 percent to 43 percent.
Among the 86 percent of likely voters who watched the debate, only 29 percent believe Biden has the mental capacity and physical stamina to serve another term, compared to 61 percent who do not. Additionally, only 33 percent feel he should remain the Democratic nominee, while 52 percent think he should step aside. Even among Democrats, just half support Biden continuing as the nominee or believe he is fit to serve another term.
Vice President Kamala Harris is now slightly ahead of Trump, 42 percent to 41 percent, according to the survey. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, despite not being a serious candidate, is ahead of Harris and leads Trump 43 percent to 41 percent.
The poll also examined other potential Democratic tickets and found a Clinton-Harris combination in the strongest position, beating Trump 43 percent to 40 percent, a four-point advantage over Biden-Harris.
Fernand Amandi, a veteran Miami-based pollster whose firm advised former President Barack Obama and conducted this poll, noted that more than one-third of Democrats do not view Biden as fit to run and think he should not continue. “Voters have significant concerns about President Biden’s advanced age, and their concerns have only grown louder,” he said. “But [they are] still not enough where it has made the race a blowout for Trump.”
Amandi expressed surprise at Hillary Clinton’s strength in the poll. “I’m really surprised by Hillary’s strength,” he said. “While some dismiss her as yesterday’s news and a candidate of the past, voters at least in this poll suggest they may be open to a Clinton comeback and that a ticket with Clinton as president and Harris as vice president is even ‘stronger together’,” referring to Clinton’s 2016 campaign slogan.
The poll also included other leading Democrats who might run if Biden steps aside, though they trailed both Harris and Trump. California Gov. Gavin Newsom lags behind Trump, 37 percent to 40 percent, and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer is slightly further behind Trump at 36 percent to 40 percent.
The survey of 1,000 likely voters, with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percent, was conducted by phone and email between July 2 and July 6. This comes as more Democratic officials, donors, and activists increase pressure on Biden to exit the race following his June 27 debate debacle.
Anthony Williams, special projects director at Bendixen & Amandi, noted that the openness to someone like Clinton shows a desire for a candidate tested on the international stage. “There’s a certain sophistication at play in the way voters are reacting. They are not knee-jerk reacting to the names that are being bandied about on television,” Williams said. “They are struggling with the same question the party is struggling with: Do we go with experience, or do we go with new? And I think, given everything going on with the world right now, if they can find someone with experience, that would help them sleep a little better.”
“We’re talking about relatively small differences — but important differences in a race that could come down to a couple points,” Williams added. “It’s almost as if [Clinton] finishes out Biden’s term in the experience lane.”
A Democratic ticket led by Harris with Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro as her running mate also did well, beating Trump by two percentage points, 42 percent to 40 percent. However, a Harris-Whitmer ticket is 2 points behind Trump, 39 to 41 percent.
Clinton, who at 76 is younger than both Trump and Biden, has publicly vowed not to run for president again and has reaffirmed her support for Biden after his Atlanta debate disaster. Shapiro, 51, took office last year after serving as attorney general and is a popular politician in his battleground state. Newsom and Whitmer are in their final terms and have been raising funds and campaigning for Biden.
Despite calls to step aside, Biden has pledged to keep running. He and White House officials pointed to his busy travel schedule before the debate and his bad cold as reasons for his poor performance. They stated that he has not had a cognitive examination and there is no reason for one.
The poll included a provocative question about whether voters would support Biden if he were cognitively diminished due to age and unlikely to complete another four years if it meant preventing Trump from winning. Forty-eight percent of voters said they would not support Biden for that reason, while 44 percent said they would, including 75 percent of Democrats. The strongest support for Biden came from Black voters, with 55 percent willing to back him even if he suffered age-related impairment and couldn’t complete the term.
Amandi noted that these answers show the floor of likely voters nationally who, despite reservations about Biden’s age and ability, would not let that stop them from opposing Trump, whom a majority see as a major threat.
In the poll, 53 percent of respondents viewed Trump becoming president as a grave danger to democracy in the U.S., while 37 percent dismissed it as partisan rhetoric.
“The debate exposed damage to both candidates — because one would have expected, in the aftermath of what the president himself described as a disastrous debate, for Trump to be opening up a significant lead,” Amandi said. “We’re not seeing that. And the backstop for that is voters having legitimate concerns about what Trump winning the presidency would mean for the future of the country and the democracy.”
Forty-eight percent of likely voters disagreed with the Supreme Court’s recent decision that Trump has immunity from criminal prosecutions for actions he took as president to subvert the 2020 election, while 40 percent agreed.
Amandi commissioned and conducted the poll to understand where likely voters stood after the June 27 debate — whether they would stick with Biden despite his struggles, and, if not, who else might be a viable alternative against Trump just three months before some states begin early voting.
“The debate has reset the race from the perspective of what it means if Biden continues on or if we go down an unprecedented and uncharted path of making a nominee switch because he decides to step aside,” he said. “Are there alternatives that would be competitive with Trump? The answer is there are two: Clinton and Harris, who have a small but significant lead.”
On a pivotal day in Washington, President Joe Biden held onto the Democratic nomination, though concerns about his decision to stay in the race were starkly highlighted. One of his party’s senators warned on CNN that Donald Trump could win in a “landslide,” underlining the risks involved in Biden’s refusal to step aside.
Biden’s determination has left Democrats increasingly worried that the president could jeopardize not only the White House but also their chances of retaking the House or retaining the Senate—challenges already seen as uphill battles.
The White House managed to quell rebellions in emotional meetings with Senate and House Democrats on Tuesday. However, even some of Biden’s supporters expressed doubts about his strategies and his ability to run a successful campaign. Uncertainty about Biden’s future grew on Wednesday with comments from former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and actor George Clooney, who urged Biden to step aside.
Sen. Michael Bennet of Colorado was among three Democrats who privately expressed concerns about Biden’s chances of winning in November, sources told CNN’s Dana Bash. Bennet later publicly voiced his fears. “Donald Trump is on track, I think, to win this election and maybe win it by a landslide and take with him the Senate and the House,” Bennet said on CNN. “So for me, this isn’t a question about polling. It’s not a question about politics. It’s a moral question about the future of our country.”
“The White House, in the time since that disastrous debate, I think, has done nothing to really demonstrate that they have a plan to win this election,” he added.
While Bennet’s comments do not reflect the public stance of all Democratic senators, the debate and its aftermath have undeniably stirred deep concerns within the party.
Pelosi alluded to this anxiety during an MSNBC appearance, suggesting that Biden’s place on the Democratic ticket was still in question despite his firm stance. “It’s up to the president to decide if he is going to run. We’re all encouraging him to make that decision because time is running short,” she said. “I want him to do whatever he decides to do and that’s the way it is.”
In a striking op-ed in The New York Times, Clooney criticized Biden after attending a fundraiser with him last month. “It’s devastating to say it, but the Joe Biden I was with three weeks ago at the fundraiser was not the Joe ‘big F-ing deal’ Biden of 2010. He wasn’t even the Joe Biden of 2020. He was the same man we all witnessed at the debate,” Clooney wrote. “We are not going to win in November with this president,” he warned, noting that lawmakers he spoke with privately shared this view.
The last two weeks have significantly weakened Biden’s standing within a party already lukewarm about his campaign. His recent missteps threaten to narrow an already fragile path to reelection against a revitalized Trump, who held a fiery rally in Florida on Tuesday, nine days before he’s set to accept the Republican nomination.
Deep unease over Biden’s prospects permeated through Democratic senators and representatives in Washington on Tuesday, with venting sessions taking place behind closed doors. Despite growing calls for him to step aside, Biden managed to maintain his grip on the nomination with support from Senate and House leaders, albeit lukewarm.
In a letter to lawmakers on Monday, Biden reaffirmed his commitment to the race: “I am firmly committed to staying in this race.” This, coupled with the primary voters’ decisions, left his critics with little room to maneuver. Pelosi, however, hinted that the matter was still open. “Just hold off, whatever you’re thinking, either tell somebody privately but you don’t have to put that out on the table until we see how we go this week,” she advised Democrats. After her comments circulated widely, a spokesperson clarified that Pelosi “fully supports whatever President Biden decides to do.”
Rep. Ritchie Torres provided a stark warning to CNN about the potential impact on other races if Biden continues his bid for reelection. “If we are going on a political suicide mission, then we should at least be honest about it,” he said, adding, “There must be a serious reckoning with the down-ballot effect of whomever we nominate.”
Biden faces another critical test on Thursday with a solo press conference at the end of the NATO summit. Any mistakes or confusion could further undermine Democratic support.
The crisis surrounding Biden’s campaign reflects the broader turmoil within the Democratic Party, which is grappling with concerns about his viability, strength, and mental capacity less than four months from Election Day. There is scant evidence that Biden is ready to engage in intensive campaign activities, which many Democrats believe are essential for a successful run. Some Democrats doubt his chances of winning in November, while the urgency of the situation is magnified by Trump’s strong political position.
Tuesday was seen as a crucial day for Biden, as it marked the first time lawmakers had gathered en masse since the debate and the July Fourth recess. Despite an increase in calls for him to step aside, Biden managed to stabilize his campaign’s crisis.
“We do want to turn the page. We want to get to the other side of this,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters, though the president’s political challenges as the oldest-ever president remain significant.
Biden delivered one of his strongest recent public appearances at the NATO summit in Washington on Tuesday, even as the effects of aging were evident in his speech and movements. “Remember, the biggest cost and the greatest risk will be if Russia wins in Ukraine. We cannot let that happen,” he said, praising NATO as “the single greatest, most effective defense alliance in the history of the world.”
The summit was intended to highlight Biden’s leadership as a key figure in the West since World War II and to contrast him with Trump, who often criticized America’s European allies. Instead, it has become a test of Biden’s mental acuity.
White House officials told CNN’s Kayla Tausche that Biden’s speech went according to plan and hoped it would allow him to resume “business as usual.” However, every public appearance by the president now feels like an excruciating wait for potential gaffes, awkward moments, or freezes. His debate performance left an unflattering impression on 50 million viewers, and it’s a low bar for a president to deliver a short, scripted speech without issues.
The situation is unlikely to improve over the next four months due to the inherent challenges of Biden’s matchup with Trump and his decision to run for a term that would end when he is 86.
Nevertheless, it’s too early to count Biden out. Voters decide elections, not lawmakers or media commentary. Biden has repeatedly defied predictions of his political demise and has shown resilience despite personal and political setbacks. Trump, a convicted criminal, has a knack for alienating moderate, suburban, and swing voters with his extreme rhetoric and threats.
The Republican National Convention in Milwaukee next week, which will likely turn into a MAGA festival, is seen by the Biden camp as an opportunity to highlight the contrast with Trump, which Biden’s debate performance had temporarily obscured.
Most post-debate national polls suggest Biden lost a couple of points to Trump, making an already close race tighter. However, there is little quality polling in swing states since the debate. Biden was generally trailing Trump in many battlegrounds before the debate and needed to reset the race, but instead, he created negative momentum.
Biden’s failure to frame a sharp contrast with Trump on key issues like abortion, taxes, character, and Trump’s threat to democracy and US values has fueled Democratic despair.
This disappointment was evident as lawmakers entered their meetings on Tuesday, with many avoiding reporters afterward. A source told CNN’s Bash that Sens. Sherrod Brown of Ohio and Jon Tester of Montana joined Bennet in expressing doubts about Biden’s chances.
“It’s true that I said that,” Bennet told CNN. “Donald Trump is on track, I think, to win this election and maybe win it by a landslide and take with him the Senate and the House.”
Sen. Angus King, an independent from Maine who caucuses with Democrats, said senators believe Biden must engage in unscripted situations to address voters’ questions. Asked about the risks of Biden stumbling, King replied: “It seems to me that’s a risk they have to take. If he’s OK, it shouldn’t be a problem.”
Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman defended Biden. “We concluded that Joe Biden is old; we found out, and the polling came back that he’s old,” Fetterman told CNN. “But we also agreed that he’s our guy.”
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, asked about Biden, responded tersely, “I’m with Joe,” indicating his support.
Rep. Jerrold Nadler, who had privately doubted Biden’s candidacy, said he now supports him, though his decision seemed driven by the difficulty of replacing Biden rather than confidence in his strength. “I’m not resigned to it. He made very clear he’s going to run. He’s got an excellent record, one of the most excellent presidents of the last century. Trump would be an absolute disaster for democracy; so, I’m enthusiastically supporting Biden,” Nadler said.
The Congressional Black Caucus, a powerful House Democratic Caucus faction, has also bolstered Biden’s support. Many CBC members are in safe districts and may face less pressure than frontline Democrats critical of Biden’s debate performance. Texas Rep. Marc Veasey voiced concerns for vulnerable colleagues, criticizing Biden’s post-debate efforts. “Whatever I have seen so far hasn’t shown me that that’s going to be enough to get there. I just don’t think that dog is gonna hunt,” Veasey told CNN. “I think that he has a long way to go and I think there are stronger candidates that would be more likely to beat Trump at this point, but if he says that he is going to stay in, (then) he’s the nominee.”
Rep. Mikie Sherrill of New Jersey praised Biden’s presidency but became the seventh House Democrat to call for him to step aside. “Because I know President Biden cares deeply about the future of our country, I am asking that he declare that he won’t run for reelection and will help lead us through a process toward a new nominee.”
Some Democratic leaders sought to rally their members by attacking Trump. “Every single member of the House Democratic Caucus is clear-eyed about what the stakes of this election are,” said Rep. Pete Aguilar, the caucus chairman. “Donald Trump cannot be allowed near the Oval Office and his extremist allies must never be allowed to pass a national abortion ban or their dangerous Project 2025, which would erode our democracy and enable Trump’s worst impulses,” the California Democrat said. His forceful presentation underscored the missed opportunities Biden had in the debate.
In Las Vegas, Vice President Kamala Harris attacked Trump with the vigor of a former prosecutor. “I will say that someone who vilifies immigrants, who promotes xenophobia, someone who stokes hate should never again have the chance to stand behind a microphone and the seal of the President of the United States,” Harris said.
For Democrats who believe Harris would be a stronger nominee, her dynamic delivery highlighted an alternative path that Biden has closed off.
Vice President Kamala Harris has captured the attention of Republican donors, holds significant name recognition, and is gaining support from influential Democratic Party figures. Should President Joe Biden step aside from the 2024 election, Harris would be the natural successor, according to top Democrats. This raises a crucial question: Does Harris have a better chance than Biden of defeating Donald Trump? Despite Biden’s insistence on staying in the race, discussions about Harris’s potential candidacy are intensifying.
If Harris were to become the party’s nominee and win the November 5 election, she would be the first woman president of the United States, and the first African American and Asian individual to serve as vice president. Her tenure in the White House over the past three and a half years has been marked by a slow start, significant staff turnover, and challenging early assignments, such as addressing Central American migration, which did not yield major successes.
As recently as last year, concerns within the White House and Biden’s campaign team regarding Harris’s potential liability to the campaign were prevalent. However, her recent efforts on abortion rights and engagement with young voters have significantly altered this perception among Democratic officials.
The Biden-Harris campaign expressed, “She is proud to be his running mate and looks forward to serving at his side for four more years.” Recent polls indicate that Harris might have an edge over Biden in a potential matchup against Trump. A CNN poll released on July 2 showed Trump leading Biden by six percentage points (49% to 43%), while Harris trailed Trump by a narrower margin of 47% to 45%, within the margin of error. The poll also revealed that independents favor Harris over Trump (43% to 40%) and that moderate voters prefer her 51% to 39%.
Another poll by Reuters/Ipsos following a debate between Trump and a struggling Biden showed Harris and Trump nearly tied, with 42% supporting Harris and 43% backing Trump. Among possible alternatives to Biden, only former First Lady Michelle Obama, who has shown no interest in running, polled higher. Internal polling from the Biden campaign indicated that Harris has similar odds as Biden of beating Trump, with 45% of voters supporting her compared to 48% for Trump.
Several influential Democrats have signaled their support for Harris as the best option if Biden steps aside. These include U.S. Representative Jim Clyburn, a key figure in Biden’s 2020 victory; Rep. Gregory Meeks, a senior member of the Congressional Black Caucus; and Summer Lee, a House Democrat from Pennsylvania. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries has also reportedly indicated support for Harris in private discussions.
Republican donors are taking Harris seriously, with some preferring Trump to face Biden rather than her. Pauline Lee, a Trump fundraiser in Nevada, stated, “I would prefer Biden to stay in place,” and criticized Biden as “incompetent.” Wall Street, a crucial Democratic fundraising hub, is also beginning to show a preference for Harris. Sonu Varghese, global macro strategist at Carson Group, remarked, “Biden is already behind Trump, and is unlikely to overcome that gap given where his campaign is currently. Having VP Harris likely improves Democrats’ odds of taking the White House.”
However, a majority of Americans view Harris negatively, similar to their perceptions of Biden and Trump. Polling data from Five Thirty Eight shows 37.1% of voters approve of Harris while 49.6% disapprove, compared to Biden’s 36.9% approval and 57.1% disapproval, and Trump’s 38.6% approval and 53.6% disapproval.
Since the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision to repeal the constitutional right to abortion, Harris has become the administration’s leading voice on reproductive rights. This issue is central to the Democrats’ strategy for the 2024 election. Harris could invigorate key Democratic-leaning groups whose enthusiasm for Biden has waned, including Black voters, young voters, and those dissatisfied with Biden’s handling of the Israel-Hamas conflict. Tim Ryan, a former Democratic Congressman from Ohio, wrote, “She would energize the Black, brown, and Asian Pacific members of our coalition…she would immediately pull the dispirited youth of our country back into the fold.”
Harris’s stance on Israel is aligned with Biden’s, though she was the first senior U.S. leader to call for a ceasefire in March. Abbas Alawieh of the “Uncommitted” movement, which withheld votes for Biden over his support for Israel, stated, “Simply swapping out the candidate does not address the central concern.”
If Biden steps aside, other Democrats might compete for the nomination. However, choosing another candidate over Harris could alienate Black voters, crucial to Biden’s 2020 victory. Adrianne Shropshire, executive director of BlackPAC, asserted, “There is no alternative besides Kamala Harris…Jump over the Black woman, the vice president, and I don’t think the Democratic Party actually recovers.”
Harris may struggle to win over moderate Democrats and independent voters who favor Biden’s centrist policies. Dmitri Mehlhorn, adviser to LinkedIn co-founder and Democratic megadonor Reid Hoffman, noted, “Her greatest weakness is that her public brand has been associated with the far-left wing of the Democratic Party…and the left wing cannot win a national election.”
Harris would inherit Biden’s campaign infrastructure and funds, a crucial advantage with only four months until election day. However, Democratic strategists emphasize the need to raise hundreds of millions more dollars. A Democratic National Committee source remarked, “I can tell you we have a really tough time raising money for her.”
During the 2020 presidential race, Harris lagged behind Biden in fundraising, dropping out in December 2019 after reporting $39.3 million in total contributions compared to Biden’s $60.9 million. However, Biden’s campaign raised a record $48 million in 24 hours after naming Harris as his running mate.
Some Democrats believe Harris’s prosecutorial background could shine in a debate against Trump. Mehlhorn commented, “She is incredibly focused and forceful and smart, and if she prosecutes the case against the criminality of Donald Trump, she will rip him apart.”
Republican attacks on Harris are increasing as she is considered a possible replacement for Biden. Conservative media are reviving criticism from the 2020 race, including claims that she laughs too much and is untested and unqualified. The New York Post, owned by News Corp, ran a column titled “America may soon be subjected to the country’s first DEI president: Kamala Harris,” criticizing her rise due to the party’s diversity initiatives.
Kelly Dittmar, a political science professor at Rutgers University, said, “Unfortunately, the reliance on both racist and sexist attacks and tropes against women running for office is historically common and persists to this day.”
In the wake of Joe Biden’s debate performance, many Democratic insiders are now discussing who Kamala Harris might choose as her running mate. A growing number of party officials, operatives, and donors are doubtful that Biden’s campaign can recover, based on CNN’s interviews with two dozen Democratic politicians and operatives.
Biden often says to compare him to the alternative, not the almighty, which is what more Democrats are doing with Harris. Harris and her team have largely ignored the influx of calls and texts, maintaining a firm stance on their support for Biden. However, Harris did make some adjustments, like joining Biden for the Fourth of July picnic and fireworks, a first for her.
Despite her support, the Democratic landscape is shifting around Harris, with former President Donald Trump’s campaign already targeting her. Officials have begun advising donors to back Harris, arguing that a unified party support is essential. Some plans are in motion to convince Biden to endorse Harris immediately, release his Democratic delegates, and request their support for her. This strategy aims to prevent a contentious primary fight.
If the race opens, Democrats hope Harris’ running mate will be a prominent governor. North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper and Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear are frequently mentioned, along with Pennsylvania’s Josh Shapiro, Illinois’ J.B. Pritzker, and Minnesota’s Tim Walz. However, this could complicate matters by not allowing Harris to select her own running mate, a privilege typically given to presidential nominees.
A Democratic senator compared the situation to a football game, with Biden as a star quarterback who might need to be replaced by his backup, Harris. “The backup knows our team, the backup knows the plays, the backup has played in the NFL,” the senator said, highlighting Harris’ familiarity with the political landscape.
Some Democrats fear losing their seats with Harris at the top of the ticket, but others have changed their views, preferring her over Biden. The leader of one major Democratic group said, “Are you kidding?” when asked about preferring Harris, emphasizing that while Biden is in bad shape, Harris could unify the party if she becomes the nominee.
A document titled “Unburdened by What Has Been: The Case for Kamala,” written by senior Democratic operatives, is circulating among donors and coalition groups. It argues that Harris is the only viable candidate to win, stating, “Kamala Harris has the strongest claim to Democratic legitimacy. She is the only candidate who can take the reins right now… She has significant and widely underplayed electoral advantages. She can win.”
Rep. Nanette Barragán, who supported Harris in 2019, noted the shift in conversations about Harris. “It’s nice to see that people are finally recognizing the value of her work and what she brings to the partnership,” she said.
Biden’s sparse public schedule post-debate has increased doubts about him and bolstered Harris’ case. Mini Timmaraju, president of Reproductive Freedom for All, said Harris already has more credibility than Biden on key issues like abortion rights, and emphasized, “You can’t win this election without Kamala.”
Harris loyalists are frustrated by discussions of Biden replacements not centering on her and angered by donors questioning her chances. Recent polls showing a tight race between her and Trump have only heightened their frustrations. Ezra Levin, co-founder of Indivisible, emphasized the need for voters to have confidence in Harris, stating, “It’s foolish and counterproductive to defend Biden by tearing down Harris.”
The Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) has mostly supported Biden, but members indicate they would quickly back Harris if Biden steps aside. Rep. Gregory Meeks said, “I actually don’t think that anybody else other than her would beat Trump because of what you’d lose in the base,” stressing the importance of Black voter turnout.
Harris has contemplated a Trump challenge before. In 2018, her aides asked how she’d handle a town hall debate with Trump. Her response: “Why are you being so weird?” This showcases her readiness to confront Trump head-on.
Despite her reputation for verbal gaffes, Harris has been on an upswing with voters. After Biden’s debate, she spontaneously told CNN’s Anderson Cooper that a bad 90 minutes shouldn’t overshadow Biden’s three and a half years as president. This line was so effective that it was repeated by Jill Biden and multiple campaign aides.
Harris has focused on Trump for months, planning to target his running mate by highlighting their alignment with Trump’s extremist agenda. Brian Fallon, Harris’ campaign communications director, reaffirmed, “The president is and will remain our party’s nominee, and Vice President Harris is proud to be his running mate and looks forward to serving at his side for four more years.”
The running mate conversation often includes Cooper and Beshear, both former state attorneys general with bipartisan support. Cooper has a long-standing relationship with Harris, calling her “whip smart” and stating, “I think she’s ready to do this job.” Beshear, popular in Kentucky and nationally recognized for his communication skills, has also been invited to speak at Democratic events across the country.
The Democratic party is grappling with Biden’s faltering campaign and looking to Harris as a potential successor. While the transition is fraught with challenges and uncertainties, many believe that Harris, with the right support, can lead the party to victory.
Vice President Kamala Harris stands as the leading alternative to replace President Joe Biden if he opts out of his reelection campaign, as per insights from seven senior sources associated with the Biden campaign, the White House, and the Democratic National Committee. These sources reveal ongoing discussions about potential replacements.
Biden’s recent faltering and often incoherent debate performance against Republican Donald Trump has sparked widespread panic within the Democratic party. Concerns about his fitness for a second term have led to calls for the resignation of top aides.
While some influential Democrats have proposed other alternatives to Biden, such as popular cabinet members and Democratic governors like California’s Gavin Newsom, Michigan’s Gretchen Whitmer, and Pennsylvania’s Josh Shapiro, the sources believe bypassing Harris would be nearly impossible. They suggest that Harris, with the highest name recognition and polling among potential candidates, would naturally inherit the Biden campaign’s funds and infrastructure if nominated.
A Reuters/Ipsos poll indicates Harris is trailing Trump by just one percentage point (42% to 43%), which falls within the poll’s margin of error of 3.5 percentage points, demonstrating a performance on par with Biden’s. Furthermore, Harris has been thoroughly vetted for national office and has withstood intense scrutiny from Republicans. Notably, U.S. Representative Jim Clyburn, a key figure in Biden’s 2020 victory, expressed his support for Harris as the Democratic nominee if Biden steps aside.
Michael Trujillo, a Democratic strategist from California who worked on Hillary Clinton’s campaigns in 2008 and 2016, stated, “It’s pretty near impossible to win the nomination over the vice president.” He emphasizes Harris’s entrenched position within the party.
On July 2, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre dismissed concerns, attributing Biden’s debate performance to a “bad night” and reaffirming his commitment to running for reelection. The Biden campaign referred questions about the scenario to Harris’s team, which firmly stated, “Vice President Harris looks forward to serving a second term with President Joe Biden.”
Biden’s campaign has secured 3,894 delegates from state primaries, with only a few dozen “uncommitted” delegates left. These delegates are expected to formally nominate Biden later this month during a virtual meeting before the Democratic National Convention in August. Trujillo reiterated Harris’s substantial support within the party, saying, “All of the delegates are not just Joe Biden delegates, they are Kamala Harris delegates,” and she would have significant backing from all states.
Donna Brazile, former interim chair of the Democratic National Committee and a key figure in the upcoming Democratic National Convention, stated that Harris is the immediate successor if Biden steps down. Brazile emphasized the structured process, noting, “People may have dreams of another superhero but there is a process and the last time I checked it’s a Biden-Harris ticket, she’s number two on the ticket,” while reaffirming Biden’s status as the Democratic nominee.
Overlooking Harris, the first Black and female vice president, could trigger backlash from Black and female voters, who are crucial for any Democratic victory, according to several Democratic strategists.
However, some influential Democrats remain skeptical of Harris’s chances against Trump. Four sources mentioned that Harris has been largely sidelined in post-debate speculations due to doubts about her electability. The U.S. has never elected a female president, and Harris’s role as vice president has limited her ability to distinguish herself. As recently as last year, concerns within the White House and the Biden campaign labeled her a potential liability.
Despite finding her footing on abortion rights, Harris’s approval ratings have not significantly improved, lingering below 40%. Polls indicate that she and Biden have comparable odds of defeating Trump. Harris has also faced continuous attacks from Republicans and conservative media, often viewed by her allies as sexist and racist.
Three Democratic donors, who previously advocated for Biden’s withdrawal, conceded this week that bypassing Harris is “impossible.” These donors had been considering Whitmer and Newsom as potential alternatives until recently. One donor remarked, “There is a real conversation in the Democratic party about leadership right now, but fair to say, and I’m not thrilled about this… it will be impossible to ignore Kamala.”
Another donor added, “She’s nobody’s choice, but yeah, nearly impossible.”
Despite growing calls for Biden to step aside, his reelection campaign remains firm, buoyed by his improved performance in a scripted speech in North Carolina. Stephanie Cutter, former deputy campaign manager for Barack Obama and current producer of the Democratic National Convention, stated unequivocally, “President Biden is the nominee and he’s going to remain the nominee.” She warned against fostering intra-party conflict, cautioning, “For those who are looking for some sort of interparty fight, be careful what you wish for because that would ensure a Trump victory.”
Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas) made headlines as the first House Democrat to publicly urge President Joe Biden to step down as the Democratic presidential nominee, highlighting the growing concern within the party over Biden’s debate performance. Doggett’s call reflects the internal party anxiety now spilling into the public sphere.
“President Biden has continued to run substantially behind Democratic senators in key states and in most polls has trailed Donald Trump,” Doggett stated. “I had hoped that the debate would provide some momentum to change that. It did not. Instead of reassuring voters, the President failed to effectively defend his many accomplishments and expose Trump’s many lies.”
Doggett emphasized his belief in Biden’s commitment to the country, contrasting it with Trump’s self-serving nature. “Recognizing that, unlike Trump, President Biden’s first commitment has always been to our country, not himself, I am hopeful that he will make the painful and difficult decision to withdraw. I respectfully call on him to do so,” he added.
Adam Frisch, a Democratic candidate running in Rep. Lauren Boebert’s (R-Colo.) 3rd Congressional District in Colorado, echoed Doggett’s sentiments shortly after. Frisch, who narrowly lost to Boebert in 2022, called for Biden to exit the race as well.
“We deserve better. President Biden should do what’s best for the country and withdraw from the race,” Frisch said. “I thank President Biden for his years of service, but the path ahead requires a new generation of leadership to take our country forward.”
Former Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio) also weighed in earlier that day, publishing an opinion piece advocating for Vice President Kamala Harris to be positioned as the Democratic presidential nominee.
While these views do not represent the majority of the party—at least not publicly—there is a noticeable shift in tone among some Democrats, diverging from the unified front presented by Democratic leadership and Biden’s campaign team.
“It’s a familiar story: Following Thursday night’s debate, the beltway class is counting Joe Biden out. The data in the battleground states, though, tells a different story,” Biden campaign chair Jen O’Malley stated in a Saturday memo.
“On every metric that matters, data shows it did nothing to change the American people’s perception. Our supporters are more fired up than ever, and Donald Trump only reminded voters of why they fired him four years ago and failed to expand his appeal beyond his MAGA base,” she added.
Public polls conducted after the debate have done little to alleviate Democratic concerns about Biden’s performance affecting his chances in battleground and traditionally blue-leaning states. A Saint Anselm College poll released on Monday showed Trump narrowly leading Biden 44 percent to 42 percent in New Hampshire, within the poll’s margin of error of plus or minus 2.3 percent.
Meanwhile, a USA Today/Suffolk University poll released on Tuesday indicated Trump at 41 percent and Biden at 38 percent, also within the survey’s 3.1 percentage point margin of error.
President Biden’s campaign is actively working to dispel rumors suggesting he might withdraw from the 2024 race after his underwhelming performance in last week’s debate.
“Most top Democrats have voiced support for Biden continuing in the race,” while “members of his family, including first lady Jill Biden, have declared they also want him to remain a candidate,” which calls into question the possibility of replacing Biden.
“If Biden were to step aside, several prominent Democrats could be waiting in the wings as possible successors,” including Vice President Kamala Harris.
“If Biden were to decide against seeking reelection, Vice President Harris would be the most obvious choice to replace him,” Harris has recently defended Biden’s ability to serve another term, which most other top Democrats who could be considered have also done.
“Serving in the country’s second-highest office has given her some amount of executive governing experience, and Biden choosing her as his running mate already made her one of the top possible candidates for the 2028 nomination.”
“With the presidential primaries concluded, Harris is also the only possible contender who could claim some past electoral mandate for the nomination, with the country having indirectly elected her as first-in-line to the presidency four years ago and Democratic voters backing Biden this year with the knowledge that she is the running mate.”
“But Harris has some vulnerabilities,” her favorability rating has often been even lower than Biden’s, though she has improved somewhat in the past couple of months and has a higher net approval rating than Biden, according to FiveThirtyEight.
“She also could be dogged with criticisms of the Biden administration’s policies like immigration, on which she was spearheading an initiative.”
“Still, Democrats could take a hit by passing over the first female Black vice president as its nominee when having the chance because Black voters will be a key constituency,” a poll last month showed Harris would perform better with Black voters than Biden.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom is another prominent Democrat who could step into the spotlight if Harris is passed over.
“If Harris were to be passed over, the California Gov. Gavin Newsom would almost certainly be at or near the top of many Democratic delegates’ list to be the nominee.”
Newsom has gained prominence in recent years, partly due to his defense of Biden and his clashes with prominent Republicans, notably Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R).
“Despite ongoing speculation of Newsom having presidential ambitions, he has repeatedly denied interest in running for president in 2024,” following Biden’s debate. He appeared in the spin room to argue against ditching Biden just because of one performance and called talk of Biden being replaced “unhelpful and unnecessary” in a fundraising pitch for the president on Friday.
“But if Biden were to step aside, Newsom would very likely receive significant calls to throw his hat in the ring.”
“He would be able to run on a record as a two-term governor of one of the largest economies in the world and tout many accomplishments during his tenure for the left in the solidly blue state. He also has overcome an attempt to recall him and is seen as a top possibility to run in 2028.”
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, known for her slogan “Fix the Damn Roads,” has also emerged as a rising star in the Democratic Party.
“Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer first came to office in 2018, boosted by the slogan ‘Fix the Damn Roads,’ which put a pragmatic focus on repairing the state’s infrastructure. Since then, she has become a rising liberal star in the Democratic Party.”
“Her easy reelection victory in 2022 brought with it Democratic majorities in the state House and Senate, marking the first time in decades that Democrats had a trifecta of power in Michigan. She was also reelected alongside the passage of a ballot measure enshrining abortion rights in the state constitution, an initiative she championed.”
“Whitmer has been able to notch key victories, including the repeal of the state’s decades-old abortion ban and a ‘right-to-work’ law to prop up unions.”
“Still, Whitmer has been among the clearest of the rumored choices that she is not angling to replace Biden and is fully behind him.”
“Politico reported the Whitmer called Biden campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon on Friday to make clear she was not responsible for her name being floated as a possible replacement and is willing to help Biden with the campaign. She appeared in an ad supporting the Biden-Harris ticket that she posted Sunday on her account on the social platform X.”
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, known as “Mayor Pete,” has also been discussed as a potential successor.
“Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg was relatively unknown when he first began his run for president in 2020 but gained traction and popularity as ‘Mayor Pete,’ having served as the mayor of South Bend, Ind.”
“Buttigieg became a close advocate for Biden throughout 2020, culminating in his selection as Transportation secretary, making him the first openly gay Cabinet secretary. His success has raised speculation that he may try for another presidential run down the line.”
“In particular, he had a high-profile moment in 2021 as Congress passed and Biden signed the bipartisan infrastructure law into effect.”
“Buttigieg’s youth would also be a sharp contrast to Biden despite having less experience than some other rumored possibilities. But he struggled in 2020 with rallying minority, and especially Black support, and could face controversy over the administration’s handling of the East Palestine, Ohio, train derailment.”
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, known for his moderate stance within the Democratic Party, has also been mentioned as a potential candidate.
“Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro gradually rose to higher office in his home state before being elected state attorney general and eventually governor in 2022. He has developed a reputation over his career as a more moderate Democrat but was elected after running on key liberal issues, like protecting abortion rights and raising the minimum wage.”
“His ability to comfortably win the governorship in the battleground by almost 15 points, as well as his youthful energy, has sparked rumors he could be a future face of the party, possibly running for the Oval Office in four years.”
“But he would also likely get some attention this year if Biden were to end his presidential bid. He has been one of Biden’s top surrogates and called on his fellow Democrats to put in the work necessary to get Biden elected, saying ‘hand-wringing’ and ‘fretting’ are not the answer.”
Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, who will host the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, has also been highlighted.
“As the governor of Illinois, JB Pritzker is already set to receive some attention next month as the host governor of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. This, along with his rising national profile, could yield some support for his name to be placed in contention for the nomination.”
“Pritzker is in his second term as the head of the strongly Democratic-leaning state and has been an ardent defender of Biden throughout the 2024 campaign. Also one of Biden’s top surrogates, he defended the incumbent following special counsel Robert Hur’s report on Biden’s handling of classified documents and pushed back against Democrats planning to vote for anyone other than Biden in November.”
“Andy Beshear, the Democratic governor of Kentucky, has also been noted for his impressive reelection victory in a traditionally Republican state.”
“Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear (D) pulled off an impressive reelection victory in his ruby-red state last year, improving his margin by a few points over his first election in 2019.”
“That thrust his name into the national conversation as someone who may have a future in the party, even though he will be term-limited in the next election. The governor is widely popular, only in his mid-40s and managed to win statewide as a Democrat twice in a state that hasn’t voted for a Democrat in a presidential election since the 1990s.”
“Beshear addressed the possibility of Biden being replaced Monday, telling reporters he will support Biden as long as the president remains the Democratic nominee.”
“‘The debate performance was rough. It was a very bad night for the president, but he is still the candidate. Only he can make decisions about his future candidacy. So as long as he continues to be in the race, I support him,’ he said.”
“When pressed on whether he could replace Biden, Beshear said talk of serving is ‘flattering’ but is a ‘reflection of all the good things going on in Kentucky.’”
Joe Biden faced challenges during his debate with Donald Trump on Thursday night, raising questions about how his vice president, Kamala Harris, would handle a debate against the former president.
The two leaders met in Atlanta for their first face-off in nearly four years, with Biden’s age being a significant concern. At 81, he is the oldest president in U.S. history. During the debate, Biden struggled, sounding hoarse and losing his train of thought at one point. These issues intensified discussions among Democrats about whether he should continue as the party’s nominee.
With four months until Election Day, there’s no definitive front-runner to replace Biden. However, Vice President Kamala Harris is a potential candidate. At 59, she is significantly younger than both Biden and Trump, who is three years younger than Biden. If Biden were to step down, Harris would automatically assume the presidency, making her a logical choice for a potential switch in the Biden-Harris campaign.
Polls suggest Harris faces a tougher challenge against Trump than Biden. According to RealClearPolling averages, Trump leads Harris by 6.6 percentage points, with 49.3 percent support compared to her 42.7 percent. In contrast, Trump is ahead of Biden by only 1.5 points, with 46.6 percent to Biden’s 45.1 percent.
A Politico and Morning Consult poll conducted earlier this month showed that only a third of voters believe Harris would win the election if she became the Democratic nominee. Additionally, only 60 percent of Democrats think she would succeed.
Harris has faced criticism for not having a more prominent role in the Biden administration. Less than a year into Biden’s term, the White House issued a statement to counter claims that Harris had not met expectations. In November 2021, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said, “For anyone who needs to hear it. @VP is not only a vital partner to @POTUS but a bold leader who has taken on key, important challenges facing the country—from voting rights to addressing root causes of migration to expanding broadband.”
Appointed by Biden to handle the border crisis, Harris has been criticized for the response to the influx of migrants since Biden took office. Immigration remains a top concern for voters, more than three years after Harris was named Biden’s border czar.
Harris’ reputation has struggled due to early missteps, and her approval rating reflects this. FiveThirtyEight’s polling averages indicate that less than 40 percent of Americans approve of her performance as vice president, with nearly half disapproving. Biden and Trump’s approval ratings are similarly low, with Biden’s approval around 38 percent and 56 percent disapproving. Trump has a 42 percent favorable opinion, while about 53 percent view him unfavorably.
Despite these challenges, Harris remains supportive of Biden’s candidacy. After the debate, she defended Biden in an interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper, acknowledging his “slow start” but praising his “strong finish” in the 90-minute event. Harris emphasized, “What we saw tonight was the president making a very clear contrast with Donald Trump on all the issues that matter to the American people.”
When Cooper suggested that Biden’s debate performance was disappointing, Harris responded assertively, saying, “I’m not going to spend all night with you talking about the last 90 minutes when I’ve been watching the last three and a half years of performance.”
Indians, while comprising a minor fraction of the US population, wield substantial economic influence. Despite representing only 1.5% of the population, Indian Americans contribute 5-6% of the total income taxes in the United States, equating to approximately $250-300 billion annually. This data comes from a recent report by Indiaspora and Boston Consulting Group (BCG), highlighting the impressive economic strides of the Indian diaspora, which numbers 5.1 million. Notably, about 70% of Indian Americans hold US citizenship.
Prominent figures such as Microsoft’s Satya Nadella, Google’s Sundar Pichai, and Vertex Pharma’s Reshma Kewalramani (the first female CEO of a major US biotech firm) exemplify the success of Indian Americans in the corporate world. They are among 16 Indian-origin CEOs leading Fortune 500 companies, collectively employing 2.7 million people and generating nearly $1 trillion in revenue.
Indians are not only at the forefront of major American corporations but also play a significant role in the startup ecosystem. They have co-founded 72 out of 648 US unicorns as of 2024, which employ over 55,000 people and have a combined valuation of $195 billion. The report states, “From leading the largest enterprises and founding new companies to employing millions of people across all states, the financial influence of the Indian diaspora shows the determination of individuals who overcame challenges to make meaningful contributions to their new home.”
The emphasis on academic achievement within the Indian community is notable as India strives to build a knowledge economy domestically. Approximately 78% of Indian Americans hold a bachelor’s degree or higher, significantly surpassing the US national average of 36%. Indian Americans also make up 2.6% of full-time faculty in American universities, holding about 22,000 faculty positions. Furthermore, they occupy crucial leadership roles such as deans, chancellors, and presidents in 70% of the top 50 US colleges.
Indian Americans significantly contribute to research, innovation, and academia in the US. Between 1975 and 2019, the share of US patents credited to Indian-origin innovators rose from 2% to 10%. In 2023, Indian-origin scientists were involved in 11% of all NIH grants and accounted for 13% of scientific publications. This showcases their growing influence in advancing scientific research and innovation.
The influence of the Indian diaspora extends beyond academia and into the realm of policy-making and government. As of 2023, approximately 150 Indian Americans held significant positions in the US federal administration, including Vice President Kamala Harris. With Ajay Banga’s appointment as the president of the World Bank, Indian Americans are also making significant impacts in global economic policies and development.
The achievements of Indians in the US also resonate back in India. The diaspora has contributed over $1.5 billion to philanthropy in the US while also supporting various causes in India. In 2018-19, donations from the US to India amounted to around $830 million, representing 35% of all donations to the country. This indicates a strong commitment to giving back to their homeland and addressing critical needs.
Despite these successes, the Indian American community faces challenges. As of 2020, around 6% of Indian Americans lived below the poverty line, and an estimated 14% were undocumented in 2021. These issues highlight the ongoing struggles within the community, despite its overall economic and academic successes.
Indian Americans, though a small portion of the US population, have made significant contributions to the country’s economy, academia, and policy-making. Their success is evident in the high-ranking positions they hold in major corporations and government, their substantial academic achievements, and their philanthropic efforts both in the US and India. However, challenges such as poverty and undocumented status remain areas that need addressing to ensure the continued growth and well-being of the Indian American community.
President Joe Biden was supposed to put the nation’s mind at ease over his physical and mental capacity with his debate with Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee on Thursday night. They hoped that President Biden, 81, could convince the world that his age was nothing to worry about and that he could counter Donald Trump’s wild accusations and relentless falsehoods with confidence.
But from the onset of the debate, Biden struggled even to talk, mostly summoning a weak, raspy voice. Biden’s voice was hoarse and halting. His answers were often unclear, and he struggled to finish his thoughts. In the opening minutes, he repeatedly tripped over his words, misspoke and lost his train of thought.
Biden produced the weakest performance since John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon started the tradition of televised debates in 1960 — then, as on Thursday, in a television studio with no audience.
Rather than dispel concerns about his age, his garbled debate performance reinforced his frailties and sent shudders of anxiety through Democrats who believe former President Trump is poised to benefit in November. Thursday’s presidential debate saw a raspy and sometimes halting President Joe Biden struggling to confront Donald Trump on the CNN stage, spurring panic from his party.
Biden’s faltering debate performance has worried Democrats openly discussing for the need to have the president step aside for a younger candidate while elated Republicans gloat over his stumbles. “He’s not equipped to be president,” Trump said during the debate.
If the debate was the president’s best chance to turn around a tight race with Trump, which has him in deep peril of losing reelection, it was a failure.
In a hoarse voice that gained volume as the 90 minutes wore on, Biden attempted to draw substantive contrasts with his challenger, but his meandering points and blank expressions handed Trump ammunition to reprise his campaign theme that Biden is a “disaster” who is “destroying” the country.
The president, in turn, attacked Trump’s policies, morals, veracity and motives. He referred to his predecessor as “this guy,” said “he’s lying,” called Trump “a loser” and “a sucker” and “a convicted felon.” Biden said Trump “slept with a porn star,” referring to Stormy Daniels, the woman at the center of the former president’s New York conviction for falsifying hush money payments as business expenses.
“Number one, I didn’t sleep with a porn star,” Trump replied. At one point, Trump boasted about his golf prowess as evidence of his fitness and health. Biden had a comeback about his own golf handicap, as if the two were scrapping in a locker room. “Let’s not act like children,” Trump admonished.
Trump rolled over Biden, landing punch after punch. Not with logic. And certainly not with truth. But with force of personality and sheer chutzpah.
Biden struggled to articulate policy specifics, statistics and rebuttals, often stumbling or misspeaking. Early in the debate, Biden seemed to lose his train of thought and said, “We finally beat Medicare.”
The Biden campaign’s demand that each candidate’s mic be muted when it wasn’t their turn to talk seemed to help Trump. He largely waited to speak and seemed to enjoy himself. Trump seized on Biden’s halting speech, saying at one point: “I really don’t know what he said at the end of that sentence. I don’t think he knows what he said, either.” Trump refused to say that he would accept the results of the November election, saying he would do so only “if it’s a fair, and legal, and good election.”
Questions about Biden’s age and frailty have dragged down his polling numbers for months. The public concerns are exacerbated by deceptively edited videos, some of which have gone viral, that cut off relevant parts of an event, making it appear as if Biden is wandering or confused. This was Biden’s first opportunity since the State of the Union speech to dispel that narrative.
In watch parties, bars, a bowling alley, and other venues where people across the country gathered to tune in, Trump supporters, happily, and Biden supporters, in their angst if not dread, seemed to largely agree they had witnessed a lopsided showdown.
Instead of a new beginning, many Democrats saw it as a moment for panic. “Democrats just committed collective suicide,” said a party strategist who has worked on presidential campaigns. “Biden sounds hoarse, looks tired and is babbling. He is reaffirming everything voters already perceived. President Biden can’t win. This debate is a nail in the political coffin.”
“Biden just had to beat himself; unfortunately the stumbling and diminished Joe Biden the world has come to know made Trump look competent and energetic,” said a former Trump campaign official who isn’t working for his campaign this year. “I expect there will be some loud calls from Democrats for a change on the top of the ticket.”
“It’s hard to argue that we shouldn’t nominate someone else,” a Democratic consultant who works on down-ballot races said.
Democrats fear a Biden loss could take down other candidates. Some chattered online and to reporters behind the scenes Thursday night about possible emergency off-ramps. One House Democrat from a swing state told The Hill, “Biden’s team needs to convince him to withdraw and have an open convention.”
After the debate, “Dump Biden” opinion pieces are everywhere this morning. “There are no two ways about it. That was not a good debate for Joe Biden,” Kate Bedingfield, who served as Biden’s longtime communications aide, conceded on CNN.
But the panic among donors and party officials after watching Biden falter Thursday night in his debate against Trump has led some of them to take steps to get Biden out of the race.
There are already discussions among Democratic fundraisers about trying to convince congressional leaders — Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer in particular — to urge Biden to announce to drop out, according to people familiar with the matter who were granted anonymity to speak freely.
But replacing Biden as the party’s pick less than five months out from Election Day carries enormous political risks and would be difficult, if not impossible, to pull off. Right now, the only likely way Biden could be replaced is if he willingly ends his campaign.
And Biden’s aides and top Democratic officials say the 81-year-old incumbent has no plans to do so. Closing ranks around his former vice-president, former Pressident Barack Obama tweeted a link to a fundraising page on Biden’s campaign website and offered words of encouragement.
“Bad debate nights happen. Trust me, I know,” Obama said, referring to his own lackluster encounter against Mitt Romney in 2012. He said this election remains a choice between someone, Biden, who cares about ordinary people and tells the truth, against someone who doesn’t, Trump. “Last night didn’t change that, and it’s why so much is at stake in November.”
“Democrats are in a very difficult situation because it’s late in the campaign for a change,” said Meena Bose, director of the Peter S. Kalikow Center for the Study of the American Presidency at Hofstra University, in an interview with CNBC. The only feasible way Bose could see it playing out is with Biden throwing his full support behind Vice President Kamala Harris to become the new nominee.
Asked on Friday about Democratic concerns with his showing and whether he should consider stepping aside, Biden said, “No, It’s hard to debate a liar.”
“I know I’m not a young man, to state the obvious,” Biden told a crowd that chanted “four more years, four more years.” The president added, “I don’t walk as easy as I used to. I don’t speak as smoothly as I used to. I don’t debate as well as I used to.” Biden went on, raising his voice,“But I know what I do know. I know how to tell the truth. I know right from wrong. And I know how to do this job.”
“I know what millions of Americans know: When you get knocked down, you get back up.”
President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump are set to face off in the first presidential debate of the 2024 general election on Thursday night in Atlanta. This debate marks a new phase in the race, less than five months before Election Day on November 5, with the candidates in a virtual tie according to the latest NPR/PBS News/Marist poll. This trend has been consistent in recent national surveys.
Breaking from tradition, this debate takes place months earlier than usual and features a new set of rules agreed upon by both candidates, including the absence of a live audience. This will be the first debate of the campaign season for both candidates; Biden ran largely unopposed, and Trump skipped the GOP primary debates.
Debate Details
The debate will start at 9 p.m. ET and run for 90 minutes, moderated by CNN’s Jake Tapper and Dana Bash at the network’s studios in Atlanta. It will be available on CNN and the streaming platform Max (formerly HBO). Those without a cable login can watch on CNN’s website. NPR will provide live updates and a livestream of the debate.
Participants
Biden and Trump are the only candidates who qualified for the debate. Independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. did not meet the threshold, which required candidates to poll at 15% or higher in four national surveys and appear on enough state ballots to theoretically secure the 270 Electoral College votes needed for the presidency.
Unique Aspects of This Debate
Unlike previous presidential debates that occur in front of a live audience, often at college or university campuses, and coordinated by the bipartisan Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD), this year’s debates will not follow that tradition. Both candidates opted out of the CPD’s scheduled debates in favor of earlier matchups.
Thursday’s debate will be hosted by CNN, with a second debate scheduled for September, hosted by ABC News. The agreed-upon rules include muted microphones unless a candidate is directed to speak, no prewritten notes or props (only a pen, paper, and bottle of water are allowed), and a coin toss to determine podium positions and the order of closing statements. Biden’s campaign won the coin toss and chose the podium to the viewers’ right, while Trump’s team opted to deliver the final closing statement.
Key Points to Watch
Both candidates are expected to address their recent legal issues. Trump was found guilty of 34 criminal charges in New York about a month ago, while Biden’s son, Hunter, was convicted on felony gun charges in Delaware in mid-June and faces a second federal trial in September for failing to pay taxes.
Biden is likely to address concerns about his age and ability to serve a second term. At 81, he is the oldest sitting president in U.S. history, and if re-elected, he would leave office at 86. While Biden has had public slipups during his first term, Trump, who is 78, has frequently criticized Biden’s mental capability, even suggesting a cognitive test. Ironically, Trump misnamed the doctor who conducted his cognitive exam while he was president in a recent speech.
Regarding issues, the debate will likely cover the economy and immigration policy, top concerns for voters according to national polls. International politics might also be discussed, given the divided opinions on U.S. military aid to Ukraine and Israel.
Biden may use the debate to address declining support among key voter demographics compared to 2020, particularly Blacks, Latinos, and young voters. Trump, on the other hand, is losing support among older voters, which Biden’s campaign aims to exploit. Trump may also need to mend relations with Nikki Haley supporters who are hesitant to back him again.
Upcoming Events
In the coming weeks, Trump is expected to announce his vice presidential pick. There will also be a vice presidential debate this summer, with Vice President Kamala Harris agreeing to a debate on either July 23 or August 13.
Legally, Trump faces sentencing in his criminal trial on July 11, just days before the Republican National Convention on July 15 in Milwaukee. The Democratic National Convention will follow a month later, starting on August 19 in Chicago. Biden and Trump will have a second debate on September 10.
The debate this Thursday is not just an early clash but a critical moment in an extremely close race. It offers both candidates a significant platform to address their legal issues, policy positions, and voter concerns as they vie for the presidency in a divided nation.
A two-day summit in Switzerland focused on finding a resolution to the Ukraine war concluded with key nations refusing to endorse a joint communique accepted by over 80 countries and international organizations.
India, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, and the United Arab Emirates, all of which maintain significant trade relations with Russia as part of the BRICS economic group, participated in the weekend summit but declined to sign the joint statement.
The communique reaffirmed the signatories’ commitment to “refraining from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, the principles of sovereignty, independence, and territorial integrity of all states, including Ukraine, within their internationally recognized borders.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky emphasized at a press conference alongside leaders from the European Union, Ghana, Canada, Chile, and Switzerland that it was “important that all participants of this summit support Ukraine’s territorial integrity because there will be no lasting peace without territorial integrity.”
More than 100 countries and organizations assembled at a picturesque lakeside resort near Lucerne to rally support for the 10-point peace plan Zelensky introduced in late 2022.
The plan includes calls for a cessation of hostilities, the restoration of Ukraine’s territorial integrity, the withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukrainian soil, and the reestablishment of Ukraine’s pre-war borders with Russia—terms that Russian President Vladimir Putin is unlikely to ever accept.
Notable dignitaries in attendance included leaders from Argentina, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Poland, Sweden, and the United Kingdom.
US Vice President Kamala Harris attended the summit and announced a $1.5 billion aid package intended for humanitarian efforts and to help Kyiv rebuild its damaged infrastructure.
“This high-level attendance shows one thing: the world cares deeply about the war provoked by Russia’s aggression,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said.
Despite the strong presence of Western democracies, there were questions prior to the event regarding the potential outcomes, especially since neither Russia nor China, which has bolstered the Kremlin’s resistance to Western sanctions through close trade relations, were present.
The communique issued on Sunday indicated that signatories had reached several other agreements. These included allowing Ukraine to operate its nuclear power plants, including the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, and ensuring the Kremlin refrains from using or threatening to use nuclear weapons. Additionally, the sides agreed that all children and civilians unlawfully displaced must be returned to Ukraine.
On Friday, the day before the summit commenced, Russian President Vladimir Putin reiterated the Kremlin’s peace plan, which calls for Ukrainian troops to withdraw from four southern and eastern regions that Moscow claims to have annexed in violation of international law, and for Kyiv to abandon its NATO membership ambitions.
While Russian forces have made modest advances in two of these regions—Donetsk and Luhansk—in recent months, they do not fully occupy all four, which also include Kherson and Zaporizhzhia.
US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, who accompanied Harris to Switzerland, criticized Putin’s framework, stating it “defies basic morality.”
“He (Putin) said, not only does Ukraine have to give up the territory Russia currently occupies, but Ukraine has to leave additional sovereign Ukrainian territory before Russia will negotiate. And Ukraine must disarm so that it is vulnerable to future Russian aggression down the road. No responsible nation could say that is a reasonable basis for peace,” Sullivan said.
The number of Indians living in the US has grown to 5 million in 2023, representing a 50 percent increase since 2010, a new report by Indiaspora, a California-based non-profit highlighted.
The report titled, Indiaspora Impact Report: Small Community, Big Contributions, compiled by Boston Consulting Group (BCG), is the first in a series examining the impact of the Indian diaspora in the United States, focusing on public service, business, culture, and innovation. The report not only presents compelling statistics but also profiles inspiring individuals who exemplify the diaspora’s contributions across various sectors.
As the second-largest migrant group in the US, Indian-Americans, with their young and highly educated demographic, have significantly influenced American life. At a time when immigration is a contentious issue, Indian-Americans have become one of the most influential immigrant groups in the country.
Philanthropy
Indian American households contribute $1.5 to $2 billion annually to various causes, the report found. “Since 2008, individuals of Indian origin have donated $3 billion to US universities, including 65+ donations of $1M+ to 40+ universities,” it states. “Notable donations include: $2 billion by Amar Bose to MIT and $140 million by Rajan Kilachand to Boston University.”
“Indian Americans account for only 1.5 percent of the US population, yet they continue to have an outsized and positive impact across different aspects of US society,” said MR Rangaswami, founder of Indiaspora, a nonprofit organization of global Indian diaspora leaders. “Indian American-driven innovation flows to the country’s bottom line and is laying the groundwork for the next phase of economic growth.”
US economy
16 Fortune 500 companies are led by CEOs of Indian origin. “Ranging from Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Google, who traveled on a plane for the very first time when he came to the US to attend Stanford, to Reshma Kewalramani, the CEO of Vertex Pharmaceuticals, who migrated at the age of 12 and went on to study medicine at Boston University,” the report states.
Another key finding in the report is that Indian-Americans have co-founded 11 percent unicorns (72 out of 648) in the US in 2023. These have a combined valuation of $195 billion, employing over 55,000 individuals.
“These startups are solving a diverse range of problems. For instance, Hari Balakrishnan’s Cambridge Mobile Telematics aims to make America’s roads safer, while Gaurab Chakrabarti’s Solugen is decarbonizing industrial processes,” the report highlights.
In addition to this, Indian-Americans pay 6 percent of all US taxes.
Science and innovation
Members of the diaspora represent more than 10 percent of the National Institute of Health (NIH) grants and US patents, as well as hold significant positions in academia.
“In 2023, Indian-origin scientists were part of research groups at the forefront of innovation,” it says. “The share of US patents with a co-inventor of Indian origin also grew fivefold from about 2 percent in 1975 to 10 percent in 2019.”
Some Indian-origin researchers achieved great feat. While Navin Varadarajan’s work in immunotherapy offers hope to cancer patients, Subra Suresh, former director of the National Science Foundation, has patented crucial biomedical devices that transform healthcare practices worldwide.
Some individuals are even contributing to shaping tomorrow’s global leaders.
“Approximately 22,000 faculty members of Indian origin each at US higher education institutions — 2.6 percent of all full-time faculty. Figures like: Neeli Bendapudi, the first woman and the first person of color to serve as Penn State’s President; and Arun Majumdar, the inaugural dean of Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability, whose pioneering work in energy research is equipping students to tackle climate change, embodying the academic influence of the diaspora.”
Government and Public Policy
Over 150 Indian Americans are currently in serving in senior administration positions accounting for 6.2 percent of the total positions. Kamala Harris, whose mother hails from India, created history as the first woman to be sworn in as Vice President in 2021 and is the highest ranking Indian American in the United States.
“Indian-origin persons account for 3 percent of leadership in government agencies like the NSF, CDC, EPA. Dr. Sethuraman Panchanathan serves as the 15th director of the US National Science Foundation since 2020,” the report says.
Public Health
Indian American physicians are highly sought after in the United States, with every one in seven Americans being treated by them. They make up 10 percent of all physicians in the US but serve approximately 30 percent of patients, the report highlighted.
Dr Vivek Murthy, the 19th and 21st Surgeon General of the US, is the first Surgeon General of Indian descent
Food and culture
Interestingly, about 3 percent of Michelin Guide USA restaurants feature Indian cuisine. “There is a rising popularity of drinks like turmeric latte and chai, as well as the celebration of festivals such as Diwali and Holi,” the report says.
From 2015 to 2023, 96 Indian movies grossed over $1 million in North America, and $340 million collectively. Additionally, Indian-origin artists have won 10 prestigious awards since 2015 across the prestigious and sought-after Oscars, Golden Globes, and Grammy Awards.
Commenting on the report’s findings, Indiaspora founder M.R. Rangaswami, said, “Indian Americans account for only 1.5 percent of the US population, yet they continue to have an outsized and positive impact across different aspects of US society. Indian American-driven innovation flows to the country’s bottom line and is laying the groundwork for the next phase of economic growth.”
(RNS) — Whether studying computer science at Stanford or technology law at Georgetown, working for the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency or, as now, running for Georgia’s state Senate, Ashwin Ramaswami has always made sure to prioritize four things every day: morning hatha yoga practice and three daily meditations — morning, noon and evening.
Ashwin Ramaswami’s state Senate campaign carries with it broader national themes of election protection and Hindus’ emerging presence in American politics.
The 24-year-old Hindu Indian American and Democrat is running against Republican incumbent Shawn Still for the 48th District in the Georgia Senate. While local in the sense of the issues the candidates are running on, the race has broader national themes of election protection — not least because Still, who was indicted along with former President Donald Trump on allegations of interfering in the 2020 presidential election in Georgia — and Hindus’ emergence as a presence in American politics.
“Because my opponent was one of the folks whose actions led to what happened on Jan. 6,” said Ramaswami, “there’s this broader idea that we want to protect democracy, and we need people who can speak truth to power.”
It was while he was working for the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency to protect elections that Ramaswami learned his own state senator had been indicted. “I was among a small team working to protect elections,” said Ramaswami. “And here was this person, representing my area, doing the opposite.”
Born to South Indian immigrants in Johns Creek, Georgia, a suburb north of Atlanta, Ramaswami grew up with the juxtaposition of computers and faith, with parents who worked in information technology and belonged to the local Hindu community. While learning to code in high school, he also taught Sunday school, and at Stanford, while earning a computer science degree, he learned Sanskrit, the language of many Hindu sacred texts. At Georgetown, he helped raise $100,000 to establish an endowment for the university’s dharmic programs.
Ramaswami’s meditation and yoga habits began in high school, when he started his practice every morning at 4 a.m. “That really changed my life,” he said. “It showed me the value of discipline, but it also gave me my own purpose in life, which was to better understand my own tradition and who I am.”
Seva, the Hindu concept of service, helped inspire him to run for office, and he thinks faith has much to add to politics, which he thinks of as a way to change hearts and minds. Religion should not be overlooked as a means to achieve that, he said, pointing to Martin Luther King Jr. and Mahatma Gandhi as role models.
Interfaith dialogue and religious literacy, too, are critical for healthy communities. “Too often our communities are isolated,” said Ramaswami. “People from different countries or religions mostly keep to themselves and don’t talk to each other as much. Through interfaith work, we realize people share a lot of the same values and face the same challenges.”
One of Ramaswami’s priorities is well-being, physical, mental and spiritual. He hopes to dedicate resources for the community’s spiritual and emotional well-being and find ways for the public school system to create community.
“I think everyone, regardless of what religion they are, is always thinking about ‘what’s my purpose in life,’” said Ramaswami. “A society which doesn’t provide avenues for investigating those questions is not going to be a successful society.”
He wants to bring this missing element to politics. “When role models are openly talking about values, religion and what matters to them, that will help the next generation and everyone to make sure that they’re spiritually fulfilled as well,” he said.
Indian Americans, the largest group of South Asian Americans in the country, historically have had little representation in American politics, but their numbers are on the rise in Congress, beginning with the 2013 election of Tulsi Gabbard, the first Hindu House member, and on the executive level with Kamala Harris’ vice presidency and Vivek Ramaswamy and Nikki Haley’s 2024 presidential campaigns. Organizations like Indian American Impact have been established in recent years to elevate the voices of Indian Americans.
“Since Impact was founded in 2016, representation of our communities has increased from approximately 50 elected officials to more than 300 nationwide,” said an Impact spokesperson.
The increase is driven by several converging factors, according to Impact. The children of the first large wave of South Asian immigrants from the 1960s and 1970s are now awakening to their political power, reaching an age where they can leverage resources and opportunities necessary to run for office. As more and more leaders step up to run for office, they inspire others to follow suit.
“The growth of our communities as a voting bloc and their influence on American politics have also motivated many to run,” the spokesperson added, “as they’re driven by a desire to serve their community and supported by its collective strength.”
Hindus only make up about 1% of Georgia’s population, according to Pew Research Center, but 30% of the voting population of Ramaswami’s state Senate District 48 is described as Asian, Asian American or Pacific Islander, half of them South Asian. Last year, Georgia’s General Assembly passed a resolution condemning Hinduphobia, and Republican Gov. Brian Kemp established Hindu Heritage Month.
District 48’s recent history reflects this increasing diversity. In 2018, Iranian American Zahra Karinshak won the seat, and in 2020, the district elected Chinese American Michelle Au. Both are Democrats. But after the 2020 redistricting cycle, District 48 was redrawn and Still was elected in 2022. Local political observers said Ramaswami nonetheless has a chance come November.
“This is potentially now a swing district,” said Georgia state Rep. Sam Park, who has endorsed Ramaswami. “Someone of Ashwin’s caliber has a fighting chance of beating this fake elector.”
Charles Bullock, a political science professor at the University of Georgia, said District 48 appeals to ethnically diverse, younger newcomers with its good schools, green space and Atlanta’s strong job market. He predicts the district will become more Democratic over the next decade due to the changing demographics.
If Ramaswami doesn’t win this year, he might have a much better chance in 2026. “He might be able to flip this district back,” said Bullock. “There’s a chance.”
On May 13, 2024, Vice President Kamala Harris spoke at a White House Rose Garden reception celebrating Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander Heritage (AANHPI) Month, where she highlighted her mother Shyamala Gopalan’s profound impact on her life. Gopalan, born in Chennai, India, immigrated to the U.S. alone at 19, aiming to raise her daughters and combat breast cancer as a researcher. Harris attributed her success to her mother’s unwavering determination, stating, “My mother never asked anyone’s permission to pursue her dreams. And it is because of her character, strength, and determination that within one generation, I stand before you as Vice President.”
Harris also warned about current extremist efforts to foster division in the country, using positions of influence to incite “xenophobia and hate, including anti-Asian hate.” She emphasized the importance of strength in uplifting others and condemned attacks on fundamental freedoms such as voting rights, safety from gun violence, freedom from hate and bigotry, and women’s rights over their own bodies. “We see a full-on assault, state by state on our most fundamental freedoms and rights,” she said.
President Joe Biden humorously introduced himself, “My name is Joe Biden. I work for Kamala Harris,” and highlighted the nation’s identity as a land of immigrants and dreamers. He emphasized the progress made together and promoted his comprehensive immigration reform bill, which includes a pathway to citizenship for Dreamers and an expansion of green cards. Biden urged Congress to act, stressing the need for unity against the divisive rhetoric of former President Donald Trump. Biden criticized Trump’s derogatory statements about immigrants, saying, “He [Trump] calls immigrants’ rapists and murderers… He says immigrants are poisoning the blood of our country.” Biden stressed his vision of a country inclusive of all people.
The reception featured patriotic songs and Indian cuisine, such as Paani puri and Khoya. Additionally, a special celebration, ‘Lasting Legacies,’ was held at the Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium to mark the 25th anniversary of the White House Initiative and President’s Advisory Commission on AANHPI.
At the event, Xavier Becerra, Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, discussed the importance of disaggregating data for the AANHPI community and addressed rising hate crimes. He remarked, “We always have known that there is always hate out there and that sometimes it translates to criminal conduct… This commission has taken with a vengeance to address [it].”
Ambassador Katherine Tai, U.S. Trade Representative, acknowledged AANHPI leaders in the Biden administration, including Vice President Harris and others, while recalling pioneers like Representatives Dalip Singh Saund and Patsy Mink, and Secretary Norman Mineta, the first Asian American in a President’s Cabinet. Tai emphasized, “Our administration is fighting against anti AANHPI hate and violence… We are empowering members of our community… to succeed.”
Neera Tanden, Chair of the President’s Domestic Policy Council, emphasized her commitment to representing all Americans, ensuring AANHPI voices are heard in government policies on education, health care, crime, and immigration. She stated, “A priority for us is to make sure the government really represents the needs and views of all Americans.”
Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy shared his parents’ story of overcoming hardships to immigrate to the U.S., illustrating the promise of America. Reflecting on his grandfather, a poor farmer in South India, he said, “My grandfather… could never have dreamed that one day his grandson, would be asked by the President to look out for the health of an entire nation.”
Ajay Bhutoria, AANHPI Commissioner, highlighted the commission’s advocacy on economic equality, data disaggregation, language access, and immigration issues, praising the efforts of key figures like Krystal Ka‘ai and Erika Moritsugu. Bhutoria told News India Times, “The Commission has been advocating for issues important to the community around advancing economic equality, data disaggregation, language access, Green Card backlog, H1B visa stamping.”
Speaking at “Desis Decide”—an annual summit organized by a Democratic Party think tank—Vice President Kamala Harris emphasized the increasing involvement of Indian Americans in the political process. “Over the years, we’ve had so much more participation by Indian Americans in the electoral process running for office. But the numbers are still not reflective of the size of the growing population,” she stated.
Currently, there are five Indian American members in Congress: Dr. Ami Bera, Raja Krishnamoorthi, Ro Khanna, Pramila Jayapal, and Shri Thanedar. Despite this progress, Harris believes the representation still falls short relative to the population size.
Highlighting the efforts of Impact, an organization dedicated to empowering Indian Americans in politics, Harris remarked, “It really is extraordinary. I wanted to stop by to thank of course the organization for everything and for all that it represents, but also to say especially to those who have run for office or aspire to run for office, that you must run.”
Harris also reminisced about her mother, who immigrated to the U.S. from India at 19 and actively participated in the Civil Rights Movement in Berkeley. Reflecting on her childhood visits to India, she shared that she would visit every two years, recalling morning walks with her grandfather. “And I remember as a young girl… hearing them discuss the importance of standing for what is right and fairness,” she added.
Former President Trump’s choice for his running mate in the upcoming November election holds immense significance, potentially serving as a gateway to the GOP’s presidential candidacy in 2028. Unlike traditional scenarios where a vice president would typically wait eight years before pursuing the presidential nomination, Trump’s selection could instantly elevate the chosen candidate as a frontrunner for the GOP nomination in just four years. This unique circumstance underscores the exceptional weight of Trump’s decision this year.
Alex Conant, a figure from Senator Marco Rubio’s 2016 campaign, emphasizes the significance, stating, “To the extent that whoever he picks as vice president could be the presumptive front-runner four years from now, it’s a bigger deal than normal.” This potential nominee not only carries the prospect of assuming the presidency but also inheriting the mantle of the MAGA movement that has reshaped the Republican Party under Trump’s leadership.
While loyalty remains a paramount criterion for Trump in selecting his running mate, the contenders vying for his favor are acutely aware of the extraordinary opportunity this decision presents. Younger Republicans, in particular, perceive this as a chance not just for the vice presidency but as a strategic move towards positioning themselves for the 2028 presidential race.
Among those under consideration is Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, who, despite being 58 years old, is viewed favorably due to his strong fundraising abilities and compelling personal narrative as the sole Black Republican in the Senate. Senator JD Vance, another potential contender at 39, has also garnered attention as a staunch Trump ally, although he hasn’t directly discussed the possibility with Trump himself.
Other names circulating as potential future faces of the party include Representative Byron Donalds of Florida, aged 45; Representative Elise Stefanik of New York, aged 39; Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders, aged 41; and South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem, aged 51.
While speculation about the impact on the 2028 race looms large, insiders caution against overestimating its influence on Trump’s decision-making process. Dan Eberhart, a Republican donor, underscores Trump’s prioritization of loyalty over electoral considerations, suggesting that Trump’s choice will primarily reflect on his own image rather than future electoral strategies.
The details of Trump’s vice presidential search remain largely undisclosed, with periodic mentions of candidates on his “short list.” Similar to his approach in 2016, Trump is likely to delay the announcement until closer to the Republican National Convention in July, utilizing the suspense to his advantage for fundraising and media attention.
The anticipation surrounding Trump’s pick echoes the strategic maneuvering seen in the 2020 Democratic cycle, where then-candidate Joe Biden positioned himself as a bridge to the next generation of leaders. However, while Biden’s eventual vice presidential pick, Kamala Harris, was initially seen as a potential frontrunner for 2024, uncertainties have since arisen regarding her presidential prospects.
For Republicans vying for Trump’s endorsement, the stakes are high, offering a potential fast track to the presidential nomination if Trump secures victory in November. However, there’s also a cautionary tale in the fate of former Vice President Mike Pence, whose fallout with Trump over the election results damaged his standing within the party.
As the Republican contenders jockey for position on this year’s ticket, they tread a delicate balance between ambition and loyalty, hoping to avoid the pitfalls that befell Pence in his post-Trump political journey.
Nikki Haley Joins Hudson Institute as Chair, Eyes Presidential Run
The Hudson Institute, a conservative think tank based in Washington, D.C., revealed on April 15th that Nikki Haley, former GOP presidential contender, will be taking on the Walter P. Stern chair. This move sees the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and former South Carolina governor become the fourth member of Trump’s cabinet to do so, as reported by The Guardian.
Expressing her thoughts on the significance of robust partnerships and the necessity of identifying adversaries, Haley underscored the crucial role of Hudson’s mission. She stated, “They believe that to secure a safe, free, and prosperous future for all Americans, citizens must be informed, and policymakers must be equipped with solutions. I am thrilled to collaborate with them in safeguarding the values that have distinguished the United States as the premier nation on Earth.”
Haley’s new position allows her to maintain a prominent presence while contemplating a potential second bid for the presidency in 2028, according to The Hill.
John P. Walters, President and CEO of Hudson, lauded Haley as “a proven, capable leader in both domestic and foreign affairs.” He commended her for remaining resolute in defending freedom and advocating for American security and prosperity amid global political turbulence.
Despite securing victories in Vermont and the District of Columbia, Haley opted to suspend her presidential campaign in March following a substantial defeat in the Super Tuesday primaries. Throughout her campaign, she positioned herself as the prime candidate to steer away from the policies of the previous administration. Haley’s campaign strategy in its final weeks involved intense criticism of both Trump and Biden, highlighting their age and urging the emergence of a new generation of leaders. Notably, polls suggested that in hypothetical matchups against Biden, she outperformed other leading Republican contenders.
Haley directed sharp criticism towards Vice President Kamala Harris, asserting to the people of South Carolina that one of them—either herself or Harris—would soon occupy the presidency. She consistently targeted Trump during her campaign, particularly criticizing his foreign policy stances and the escalating national debt, stressing that “Chaos follows Trump” on two occasions.
Nevertheless, as noted by NPR, Haley encountered challenges in maintaining a coherent message, balancing the need to appeal to the Republican base while also attracting independents, moderate Republicans, and disenchanted Trump voters. During a campaign stop in New Hampshire, she stumbled by not explicitly mentioning slavery as the cause of the Civil War, though she promptly corrected her error.
Similarly, Haley faced scrutiny over her response to a controversial ruling by the Alabama Supreme Court that threatened access to in vitro fertilization (IVF). She asserted that “Embryos are babies,” in an interview with Ali Vitali of NBC, but later clarified her stance, emphasizing the importance of preserving fertility treatments for women during an interview with Newsman.
Although Haley gained momentum towards the end of last year, surpassing Florida Governor Ron DeSantis in several polls, she ultimately fell short of overtaking the former president, who remains the presumptive Republican nominee for the presidency.
(RNS) — For the past week, between April 9 and 15, South Asians celebrated the beginning of a new year with friends and family. Although originating in the Hindu luni-solar calendar — the Vedic auspicious month of Chaitra marks the beginning of a joyous new spring season and harvest — New Year celebrations have been adopted and adapted by religions and cultures across the Indian subcontinent.
Indians from all backgrounds celebrate according to their community’s socio-religious customs and unique calendars, from Ugadi for Telegus and Kannadigas in the southern states to the Gudi Padwa festival of western Maharashtra to the northern Assamese New Year celebration of Bohag Bihu, just to name a few.
And for those who immigrated to the United States from India, Bangladesh, Nepal or Sri Lanka, these New Year celebrations emphasize an important aspect of South Asian diasporic identity: the cultural heritage they share, rather than religious differences.
“It’s not just about crops,” said Sahej Preet Singh, a Sikh man from the northwestern state of Punjab, who moved to the United States in his 20s. “It’s not just about religion. It’s a lot more than that. It’s the culture, it’s the food, it’s that sense of belonging in the rest of the community, and all the communities coming together. It’s really about brotherhood.”
Singh, who now works as a community engagement manager for the Sikh Coalition, said that when he first immigrated, the loss of community was palpable. It was common for doors in his small town to be unlocked so friends could come and go without asking, but in an apartment in Queens, New York, he didn’t even know his neighbors. Holiday celebrations, like Vaisakhi, the New Year holiday in his Punjabi culture, have helped build a new diaspora community that is much more diverse.
“Here, you might be able to see South Indians and Marathis and Punjabis and Gujaratis all celebrating Gudi Padwa or Vaisakhi,” said Singh, who fondly remembers his mother feeding him a dessert so the New Year would start off with some sweetness.
Vaisakhi, with its colorful processions, large langar meal at the gurdwara and melodious “kirtans,” or group devotional singing, marks the start of a plentiful harvest season for the farm-heavy land of Punjab and the establishment of the Sikh faith by Guru Gobind Singh, though it was a festival time for Punjabis of all faiths.
Moving here, said Singh, who is now in upstate New York, has allowed him to better understand the commonalities between Indians and South Asians as a whole, giving him a piece of home to hold onto. The new community he has formed in the United States, he says, is a reflection of the diversity that only a place like the U.S. can bring.
“I might see somebody on the street who might not be Punjabi but they might be South Indian or Marathi or Gujurati, and I will still probably make it a point to at least nod and say hi to them,” he said. “You know, even shared iftar dinners are becoming a big deal here now.”
Naznin Seamon, a Bengali poet who moved to Queens, New York, in 1997, wants to keep religion and culture separate.
“We have so many problems, so many issues, but these cultural events, these cultural things, they actually make us open our mind,” said Seamon, a Muslim from Bangladesh. “They help us flourish, help our creativity. And it is a source of joy.”
The New Year celebration of Pohela Boishakh, celebrated by ethnic Bengali people from India and Bangladesh, has its roots in the Mughal empire, when Muslim leadership decided to switch from the Arabic lunar calendar to the Hindu solar agricultural calendar to better reflect the harvesting of crops, thus marking a new tax cycle and accounting year.
Some of Seamon’s fondest memories from Bangladesh, she says, were made during her town’s Pohela Boishakh festivities. She would look forward every year to donning a typical white and red sari, with bindi and flowers in her hair, to attend a colorful fair where she got to ride a Ferris wheel and look at photographs in a ViewMaster. Bengali Muslims and Hindus would sell their goods, including homemade animal masks that would be worn at a parade.
Though some would pray to Hindu gods for a bountiful and prosperous harvest, Pohela Boishakh is for all, Seamon says, despite a growing charge by some Muslim religious fundamentalists to discourage the sharing of a holiday they say is rooted in Hinduism.
“To celebrate any culture. I don’t have to follow that religion,” said Seamon, who is also a high school teacher. In Queens, she says the Bengali population is ever-growing, so much that she now teaches Bangla and is in charge of the Bangla Student Association at her school. The idea of celebrating Pohela Boishakh with her students, she says, is not only for them to “get off their phones,” but to appreciate the diversity of their parents’ homelands.
“Just because we came to a different country and we have so many opportunities doesn’t mean that I have to forget my own roots,” she said. “Coming to a new country is adapting and accepting, not changing my own identity, because every culture is beautiful in its own way.”
Kathirvel Kumararaja, a Hindu from Tamil Nadu in the south of India, is also seeking to help diaspora children take pride in their origins. He is the president of the more than 50-year-old New York Tamil Sangam — the first community organization for the ethnic and linguistic group in North America. The platform is for the “global Tamil community,” which stretches from India to Southeast Asia, to “share pride in belonging.”
“Starting from Indra Nooyi, Sundar Pichai, to the vice president of America, Kamala Harris — they’re all Tamils and come from the same tradition,” said Kumararaja, who is also the chair for the International Tamil Entrepreneur Network. “Starbucks CEO, FedEx CEO, you name it, they’re all Tamils. These kids have so many role models in society.”
Puthandu, the New Year holiday marking the beginning of the Tamil calendar and month of Chitterai, is a time for family, according to Kumararaja, who is married to a Tamil Christian. Kids and parents arise at the same time, laying eyes on a mirror in which they can see an abundant tray of fruits, flowers and coins, as well as a dish of raw mango, tamarind, jaggery and neem leaf, which they eat “just to show that life is sweet and sour.” Everyone prays together, seeks blessing from their elders and eats typical Tamil delicacies to bring in a prosperous beginning.
And importantly, the holiday is a public observance back home for all Tamil people, whether they are of Hindu, Christian or Muslim background. Like other ethnic New Years, including Chinese New Year, he says, many people don’t necessarily look at the Scriptures to find a reason to celebrate. It is a joyous time for all, reflected in his New York organization’s celebration with musical performances from popular Tamil singers.
“Typically, acculturation happens in American society in the name of freedom,” he said. The community festivals, he said, are one way to “show our kids what our culture is about and what are the values that we as Tamils represent. We don’t have to be shy about our culture or identity.”
Appen Menon, a board of trustees member for the Kerala Center of New York, understands this multi-religiosity. Hailing from the southern state of Kerala, where Christianity and Islam are widely practiced, Menon’s organization is no stranger to hosting combined cultural and religious events, like Easter and Vishu celebration.
“It’s a great feeling that we have people from diverse backgrounds from Kerala here, and we all celebrate all the celebrations including religious holidays together,” said Menon. “Although we are away from home, we found a home here.”
Vishu, the New Year holiday of Malayali Hindus marking the defeat of demon Narakasura by Lord Krishna, begins before dawn, when devotees make sure to lay their eyes on an idol of Krishna and a plate of abundance first thing after they wake up. Families then bathe, eat a sweet dish, go to the temple and finish the celebration with a sumptuous lunch feast.
While the scale of celebration cannot be the same in the U.S. as it is in Kerala, Menon, an attorney, says there are still benefits from forming new traditions. He and his family never celebrated Diwali, the well-known Hindu festival of light, in the same festive way of North Indians, but here, they are able to join in.
“While you’re in India, you know, you don’t see too many people from other states,” he said. “You see mostly people from Kerala and you are not exposed to those kinds of celebrations. Here, we are. And in a big way or small way, we also participate.”
After a delicious feast made by his wife, which he says he “can claim he helped with,” Menon says it’s time for a nap and a reflection on the new year.
“Back in India, when I was growing up, I didn’t know too much Hindi,” he said. “But I heard this phrase: ‘Alag bhasha, alag vesh, phir bhi apna ek desh.’”
Different language, different dress, still a country of our own.
Former UN ambassador Nikki Haley’s tenacious battle for the presidency of the US is a symbol of Indian American women’s emergence as a powerhouse in politics and society even though she dropped her Sisyphean quest two days before International Women’s Day.
On the other side of the political divide, US Vice President Kamala Harris is set for another run for the vice presidency alongside President Joe Biden, having notched the record of the first woman elected to the position that is just a heartbeat away from the world’s most powerful job.
While the two women have the highest profiles in politics, many Indian American women shine across the spectrum of politics, government, business and beyond.
They have soared into space, headed multinational corporations, led universities, and showing their versatility, served undercover for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and even took the Miss America crown.
Although overrun by former President Donald Trump, Nikki Haley made her mark by standing up to him while other competitors folded and she struck out a line of Republican politics that could have a wider appeal.
She put her stamp on politics by getting a significant chunk of votes – estimated at about 25 per cent of those cast in the Republican primaries till she quit – winning in one state, Vermont, and in Washington, the federal District of Columbia.
She also has the distinction of being elected twice as the governor of South Carolina, the first woman and the first non-White person to head the state, and the first Indian American to be a member of the US cabinet when she was the permanent representative to the United Nations, a post with cabinet rank.
Kamala Harris made her mark as California’s attorney general lofting her to the Senate where her work got her national recognition, paving the way to the second most powerful job in the US, the vice president.
She is the first woman to become vice president and she was also the first person of Indian descent elected to the US Senate.
Pramila Jayapal, who heads the Progressive Caucus in the House of Representatives, is the other politically powerful Indian American woman.
What helps them shatter glass ceilings despite their being women and, on top of that, women of color with immigrant backgrounds is a society that values merit as it steadily tries to bring down barriers to women’s advancement.
And they are not dynasts or nepobabies, either, and they got to where they are through their own merit.
As Nikki Haley said on Wednesday while announcing she was ending her race, “Just last week, my mother, a first-generation immigrant, got to vote for her daughter for president – only in America”.
In business, Indra Nooyi created a legend of her own as the CEO of Pepsico, a multinational corporation with over 300,000 employees operating in over 200 countries having a revenue of $62 billion in her final year heading it.
By the time she left in 2018 after 12 years as CEO, she boosted its annual profits from $2.5 billion to $6.7 billion as she chartered a new, more diversified course for the company.
Revathi Advaithi is the CEO of Flex, a global diversified company that is the third-largest globally in electronics manufacturing services.
She also serves on the US government’s Advisory Committee for Trade Policy and Negotiations.
Padmasree Warrior, who blazed a trail as chief technology officer for marquee technology companies Motorola and Cisco and as the US CEO of the Chinese electric vehicle company Nio, is now the CEO of a startup Fable.
In academia, there are scores of Indian American Women heading departments and schools.
Among them are heads of large universities, Neeli Bendapudi, the president of Pennsylvania State University and Renu Khator, the chancellor of the University of Houston System.
Asha Rangappa, a former Federal Bureau of Investigation agent-turned-academic, has served as an associate dean of Yale University Law School.
Indian American women have soared into space as astronauts.
Kalpana Chawla, a mission specialist and robotic arms operator, was killed on her second mission when the space shuttle Columbia broke up as it reentered the earth’s atmosphere in 2003.
Sunita Williams has done a stint as the commander of the International Space Station (ISS), on one of her four missions at the multinational orbiting research facility.
The Bhagwad Gita and the Upanishad went to space with Williams, who said that for inspiration she took them along to the ISS, from where she conducted spacewalks.
On Earth as a Navy officer, Sunita Williams was deployed during the first Gulf War and later she became a test pilot.
While the other two were on NASA space missions, aeronautical engineer Sirisha Bandla went up on a spacecraft of the private venture by Virgin Galactic, where she is a vice president.
Geeta Gopinath is the first managing director of the International Monetary Fund, having made her mark as an economist in the Ivy League and as the organization’s chief economist.
In the US judiciary, there are several Indian American women, among them Neomi Rao, a judge of the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, which is considered the most influential court below the Supreme Court.
The Biden administration has deployed Indian American Women in senior positions across government.
The most visible of them on media after Kamala Harris is Defense Department’s Deputy Spokesperson Sabrina Singh who often conducts the Pentagon’s media briefings laying out the administration’s strategic positions.
Also at that department, Radha Iyengar Plumb is the deputy under-secretary of defense.
At the White House, Neera Tanden, a veteran of Democratic Party campaigns, is an assistant to the president and domestic policy advisor.
Arati Prabhakar is the assistant to the President for Science and Technology and Science Advisor while heading the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and to the President.
Shanthi Kalathil is a deputy assistant to the President and the National Security Council’s coordinator for democracy and human rights.
At the State Department, Uzra Zeya is the under-secretary of state for civilian security, democracy, and human rights, and Rao Gupta is the ambassador-at-Large for Global Women’s Issues.
And, in the other party, Harmeet Dhillon is a member Republican National Committee who ran an unsuccessful insurgent campaign to replace the chair, Ronna McDaniel. She is a co-chair of Women for Trump and Lawyers for Trump, groups that advocate for Trump.
In an unusual occupation was Sabrina De Souza who had served in a senior role as an undercover Central Intelligence Agency agent.
Unfortunately, her cover was blown while she was on an anti-terrorism mission in Italy and that country has tried to prosecute her for capturing a terrorist who was taken to the US.
On the other side, showing the diversity of political views, Gitanjali S. Gutierrez worked as a lawyer defending an alleged terrorist held by the US detention center on Guantanamo Bay.
On the trade unions front, Bhairavi Desai is the executive director of the Taxi Drivers’ Alliance, and Saru Jayaraman has organized restaurant workers in New York City.
In entertainment, Vera Mindy Chokalingam, better known as Mindy Kaling, made her mark with the sitcom, The Mindy Kaling Project, which she created, produced and starred in.
Biden awarded her the National Medal of the Arts in 2022. And, further into the unexpected venues, Nina Davuluri was crowned Miss America in 2014. (IANS)
A recent poll indicates a growing skepticism among U.S. adults regarding President Joe Biden’s cognitive abilities, with many considering his upcoming State of the Union address to be a live evaluation for a potential second term. The survey conducted by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research reveals that approximately 6 out of 10 individuals express little to no confidence in Biden’s mental aptitude to effectively fulfill his presidential duties, marking a slight uptick from January 2022 when roughly half of the respondents shared similar concerns. Concurrently, nearly 60% also harbor doubts about the mental capacity of former President Donald Trump, the leading Republican candidate at 77 years old.
The looming 2024 election presents a scenario where voters perceive a contest for the demanding role of the presidency between two individuals well beyond conventional retirement age. The next president will confront the daunting tasks of navigating global conflicts, resolving domestic crises, and managing a gridlocked Congress.
Biden is anticipated to address these challenges and more in his forthcoming State of the Union speech on Thursday, aiming to persuade Americans of his suitability for another term. However, the president enters this critical juncture with only 38% of U.S. adults approving of his performance, while a majority of 61% disapprove. Notably, Democrats exhibit a significantly higher approval rate at 74%, in stark contrast to independents at 20% and Republicans at a mere 6%. Nevertheless, dissatisfaction spans across various domains including the economy, immigration, and foreign policy.
While approximately 40% of Americans endorse Biden’s handling of healthcare, climate change, abortion policy, and the Russia-Ukraine conflict, fewer express satisfaction with his management of immigration (29%), the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (31%), and the economy (34%). These issues are poised to feature prominently in his address before Congress.
A prevailing sentiment among 57% of Americans is that the national economy has worsened under Biden’s tenure compared to before he assumed office in 2021. Merely 30% believe the economy has improved under his leadership, although 54% express optimism regarding their personal finances.
The survey respondents evince deep-seated pessimism about their electoral choices in November, citing concerns over age and the potential for cognitive decline. One respondent, 84-year-old Paul Miller, asserts that both Biden and Trump are too old for the presidency, expressing disillusionment with his previous vote for Trump and an aversion to supporting either candidate in the upcoming election.
The president’s age becomes a focal point of scrutiny following unflattering portrayals of his mental state in a special counsel’s report. Despite Biden’s attempts to alleviate concerns through humor and deflecting attention to Trump’s own verbal missteps, his age remains a liability that overshadows his policy achievements.
A notable shift is observed within the Democratic camp, with one-third of Democrats expressing doubts about Biden’s mental acuity, compared to just 14% in January 2022. Independents pose a significant risk for Biden, with 80% expressing lack of confidence in his mental abilities, surpassing the 56% who doubt Trump’s capabilities.
Republicans generally exhibit greater confidence in Trump’s mental fitness, with 59% expressing high confidence in his abilities, while a notable portion, 20%, harbor doubts. Notably, irrespective of party affiliation, a consensus emerges regarding the perceived inadequacy of the opposing party’s nominee.
Biden’s policy agenda struggles to resonate with everyday Americans amidst the cacophony of daily life. For instance, Sharon Gallagher, a 66-year-old from Sarasota, Florida, who voted for Biden in 2020, voices concerns about inflation and perceives insufficient action from the administration to address economic challenges. Similarly, Justin Tjernlund, a 40-year-old from Grand Rapids, Michigan, expresses lukewarm confidence in Biden’s mental state but is drawn to Trump’s personality, finding him “interesting” and “refreshing.”
In light of the candidates’ advanced ages, some voters like 62-year-old Greg Olivo from Valley City, Ohio, prioritize scrutinizing Vice President Kamala Harris and Trump’s potential running mate, acknowledging the possibility of their ascension to the presidency within the next term.
Ultimately, the upcoming State of the Union address serves as a pivotal moment for Biden to confront doubts regarding his mental capabilities and rally support for a potential second term. However, with widespread skepticism persisting across party lines, the road ahead remains fraught with uncertainty.
Last Thursday, President Joe Biden faced a challenging day, starting with the release of a report by special counsel Robert Hur regarding Biden’s handling of classified documents after leaving the vice presidency. While the report did not recommend criminal charges, it highlighted Biden’s retention of classified materials in his garage and unlocked drawers. Additionally, the report emphasized concerns about Biden’s advanced age, noting instances where he appeared forgetful in interviews.
Biden responded to the report at a press conference, vehemently denying any memory issues and defending his fitness for office. However, he also made errors during the press conference, including misidentifying Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi as the president of Mexico. These events sparked debate about Biden’s suitability for a second term as president and raised questions about his handling of classified documents.
Political analysts weighed in on the potential impact of the report on Biden’s political future. Some suggested that while Biden’s mishandling of documents could be damaging, it might not outweigh other concerns voters have. Others argued that Biden’s age and memory lapses could be significant factors in the 2024 campaign, especially considering existing public perceptions of his capabilities.
Discussions also revolved around comparisons between Biden’s case and former President Donald Trump’s handling of classified documents. While Trump faced similar accusations, his approach to the issue differed, leading to speculation about how each case might influence public opinion.
The report’s characterization of Biden as an elderly man with memory issues resonated with existing concerns about his age and fitness for office. Surveys indicated that a majority of Americans had significant doubts about Biden’s ability to serve a second term as president, with many citing concerns about his age and competence.
Analysts debated the potential consequences of Biden dropping out of the presidential race, with some suggesting Vice President Kamala Harris as a potential replacement. However, others expressed skepticism about the party’s ability to navigate such a significant change, given existing divisions and concerns within the Democratic Party.
Biden’s handling of classified documents and concerns about his age and memory have ignited debates about his fitness for office and his prospects in the 2024 presidential race. While the report’s findings have raised questions about Biden’s leadership, the ultimate impact on his political future remains uncertain, with analysts offering differing perspectives on the potential outcomes.
“Despite constituting less than 1% of the U.S. population, Indian Americans are 3% of the nation’s engineers, 7% of its IT workers and 8% of its physicians and surgeons,” wrote the popular Forbes magazine in 2008. “The overrepresentation of Indians in these fields is striking–in practical terms, your doctor is nine times more likely to be an Indian American than is a random passerby on the street.”
Sixteen years later, in 2024, the Indian American community has grown even stronger; their successes encompassing almost all areas of American life – living the American Dream. The less than four million Indian Americans appear to be gaining prominence and have come to be recognized as a model community, and a force to reckon with in this land of opportunities that they have come to call as their adopted homeland.
In 1960, there were only 12,000 Indian immigrants living in the United States, according to the Migration Policy Institute. Today, the number of Indian Americans or Indian immigrants has climbed to more than 4 million, census data shows. Historically, Indians in the US worked in medicine, science & technology, engineering and mathematics-related jobs. Some, like the Patel community from Gujarat, took to the hotel industry and grew to dominate it. Others were entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley after the digital revolution of the 1980s.
In 1997, Ramani Ayer became the CEO of the Fortune 500 financial firm The Hartford, becoming the first in the list of Indian leaders heading American businesses. At present, 2% of the Fortune 500 companies of American origin — including Microsoft, Alphabet, Adobe, IBM, and Micron Technologies — are led by Indian American CEOs. One in every seven doctors in America is of Indian descent.
Among all these fields, if there is one area, where the influential Indian Americans have come to be recognized more than any other is the political arena, where they are seeking to win elections at the national, state and local levels, vying to occupy top jobs across the nation.
Ever since Gov. Bobby Jindal the first ever major Indian American presidential candidate who had sought to occupy the White House, there have been many others who have followed in his footsteps. Indian Americans have expressed keen interest in carving out their political space at the national table for decades, and now, the fruits of their labor are paying off, with more successes now than ever before.
Four years ago, it was then-California Sen. Kamala Harris, who made headlines and then elected as the vice president, becoming the highest-ranking person of Indian descent in the US government. The rise of Kamala Harris, daughter of an Indian mother, as the Vice President represented a coming-of-age of the Indian American community in the United States. Harris was born to civil rights activist parents a year before the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 was passed; this Act relaxed the quota regime that restricted foreigners. At that time, there was one Indian American lawmaker in the US House of Representatives — the Punjab-born Dalip Singh Saund, also from California.
It’s still a relatively small number, compared with the country’s total population of more than 333 million. But Devesh Kapur, co-author of “The Other One Percent: Indians in America,” said he was not surprised to see three Indian Americans in the political spotlight in the 2024 race. “Indian Americans have been selected to be the outliers — they have been selected for success,” Kapur wrote in his book with Sanjoy Chakravorty and Nirvikar Singh.
The 2024 election season in the United States (US) kicked off and now with less than 10 months to go until Election Day and a week before the next Republican primary, one group that has emerged on the national political stage in a way they never have before in U.S. history: Indian Americans.
The current election cycle is shaping up to be historic for the Indian American community at every level, from local to the presidential. After months of campaigning, only a handful of GOP hopefuls were qualified for the last Republican Party Presdetial Debate; two of them were former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley and Vivek Ramaswamy, an entrepreneur and commentator whose White House bid has skyrocketed his profile.
While insurgent candidate Vivek Ramaswamy bowed out after finishing fourth in the Iowa Caucus, former South Carolina governor, Nikki Haley, emerged with a strong showing and is now poised to give former President Donald Trump a run for his money in South Carolina primary on Tuesday, February 13.
“You have to sit and wonder, we have these two folks who are showing these all-star abilities — will we end up with an Indian American on this ticket?” said Sara Sadhwani, an assistant professor of politics at Pomona College and co-author of the Indian American Election Survey.
Harris, Haley, and Ramaswamy have many notable political differences. In a way, each is competing against the other in the 2024 election. But together, they represent a remarkable moment in American politics, experts say: Indian Americans account for about 1.3% of the country’s population, according to census data — and three Indian American politicians have risen close to the top of both major parties. “Mathematically, you would not have expected this,” said University of California, Riverside, public policy professor Karthick Ramakrishnan.
Haley had made history as the first female governor of South Carolina and the first Indian American to be appointed to a cabinet-level position, serving as the US ambassador to the United Nations in 2016. “I am the proud daughter of Indian immigrants who reminded my brothers, my sister and me every single day how blessed we were to live in this country,” said Haley, as she announced her presidential campaign last February.
In addition to the leading Presidential aspirants, there are five Indian American members in the current US Congress —Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL), Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), Ami Bera (D-CA), Ro Khanna (D-CA), and Shri Thanedar (D-MI) who are seeking re-elections this year. Each of them is expected to be reelected in 2024 due to the advantages of incumbency and their substantial campaign funding.
According to Indian American Impact, an organization dedicated to strengthening the political influence of the community, there are already more than 200 Indian Americans who are elected to positions ranging from school boards and city councils to state assemblies and senates across the country.
However, what is promising as the nation goes into another round of elections is the prospect of several candidates from a wide range of congressional districts across the country from New York to California, and from Illinois to Alabama, are aiming to join the ranks of the “Samosa Caucus.”
Kevin Thomas, a New York state senator vying to win the fourth congressional district, is a prominent Democratic contender to become the sixth Indian American member of the 119th Congress. The district, currently represented by first-term GOP Rep. Anthony D’Esposito, has historically leaned towards the Democratic party, consistently supporting their presidential nominees in the past eight elections. This favorable trend significantly boosts Thomas’ prospects of winning the primary and securing a seat in Congress.
Ohio state senator Niraj Antani is seeking the GOP nomination from the state’s second congressional district. The 32-year-old, who has been in the state legislature since 2014, is expected to get elected to Congress if he wins the Republican primary, as the district is heavily Republican. “In Congress, I will have a steel-spine in standing for life, our 2nd Amendment rights, and for pro-growth economic policies. As a fiercely pro-Trump Republican, I will work hard every day for our community in Congress to ensure every Ohioan has an opportunity to achieve the American Dream.”
Arizona State Rep. Amish Shah, the first Indian American elected to the Arizona legislature, is seeking the Democratic Party’s nomination for Arizona’s first congressional district. Shah, an emergency physician, has raised more than $1 million for his campaign and will have a fair shot in November if he wins the primary in this seat, currently represented by Republican David Schweikert and leans slightly Republican.
Ashwani Jain, a former Gubernatorial candidate of Maryland, is running for Congress from Maryland’s 6th District. He says, “I am running for Congress in the district I live in and call home – not just to be Maryland’s first Millennial, first Asian-American and first Indian-American ever elected – but because I have specific policy solutions that will open the doors of opportunity for our community.” Jain, a cancer survivor, is focused on issues including immigrant rights, climate change, labor rights and raising teachers’ pay, reproductive justice, and gun violence.
Hoboken Mayor in the state of New Jersey, Ravi Bhalla is running for Congress from the 8th District. At Congress, Bhalla says, he “will be an advocate for New Jersey’s working families as he fights to make healthcare a right for everyone, tackle climate change, protect a woman’s right to choose, and build an economy that works for all New Jerseyans.”
Suhas Subramanyam and Krystle Kaul: Two Indian Americans are vying for the Democratic Party nomination in Virginia’s 10th congressional district. Krystle Kaul Kaul, much like Subramanyam, is focusing on issues such as national security, women’s rights, economy & jobs, healthcare, education, and energy & the environment. Subramanyam, a Virginia state senator has been serving in the state legislature for the past four years. Kaul, a veteran of the defence and intelligence community, is running on her national security experience. If either of them wins the primary, they would be formidable candidates to represent this Democratic-leaning district.
Susheela Jayapal, a candidate for Oregon’s third congressional district, and Rishi Kumar, who is running for California’s 16th congressional district are other Indian Americans, who are “strong candidates who have run for office before and have name recognition.” Jayapal had served as the commissioner of Oregon’s most populous county, Multnomah County. In 2020, Kumar secured nearly 37% of the votes against the incumbent and fellow Democrat Anna Eshoo, who is now retiring, boosting his chances of victory in 2024.
Vimal Patel from Alabama’s 2nd district abd Nikhil Bhatia from Illinois’ 7th District are others who are in the fray to enter the Congress this Fall. Another Republican seeking to win on a Republican ticket is Dr. Prashanth Reddy from Kansas’ 3rd district is a physician, who is focused on defending the nation and standing up for parents and students in addition to securing the border, supporting law enforcement, standing up to China, and protecting taxpayers.
In addition, dozens of highly qualified and experienced Indian American candidates are also vying for statewide offices in this election cycle. Among those who have announced their candidacies for statewide offices, include: Minita Sanghvi, a Democrat currently serving as the Saratoga Springs finance commissioner, vying for the 44th state senate district in New York; Tara Sreekrishnan, a member of the Santa Clara County Board of Education, running for the California state assembly from district 26; Ashwin Ramaswami seeking election to the Georgia state senate from senate district 48; and Seema Singh, a member of the Knoxville City Council, running for district 90 of the Tennessee house of representatives.
Irrespective of political differences, the Indian American community is happy about the sharp increase in their political participation, especially over the last three election cycles, and is proud of the rise of another of their own. As Jon Huntsman, former Governor of Utah and United States Ambassador to China, had said: “In the last half-century, Americans of Indian descent epitomize how new waves of immigrants have been renewing our communities and our economy. ”
Shekar Narasimhan, founder and chairman of the AAPI (Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders) Victory Fund, sums it all, saying that while he is happy to see more Asian-Americans gain prominence in politics, “A beautiful thing is happening: Indian-Americans are coming to the forefront. If our children see Americans with a name like Ramaswamy run, and a Khanna or Krishnamoorthi can win, that’s a good thing.”
In his inaugural major campaign event of 2024, President Joe Biden is set to deliver a significant speech near Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, on the eve of the third anniversary of the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. The president, deeply involved in crafting the speech, aims to convey that democracy and essential freedoms face a perilous threat if former President Donald Trump were to return to the White House. This assertion follows a series of consultations with historians and scholars at the White House, echoing themes from the 2020 campaign, which Biden characterized as “a battle for the soul of the nation.”
Biden’s speech, scheduled at Montgomery County Community College in Blue Bell, Pennsylvania, will feature attendees motivated by the Jan. 6 attack, including young individuals inspired to engage in politics, “voter protection volunteers” from the 2020 election, and elected officials directly affected by the events of Jan. 6, 2021. The campaign strategically positions the location in the election battleground state as a “stone’s throw” from where Gen. George Washington transformed colonial militias into a unified force during the Revolutionary War nearly 250 years ago.
Campaign manager Julie-Chavez Rodriguez emphasized the historical significance, stating, “This Saturday will mark the three-year anniversary of when, with encouragement from Donald Trump, a violent mob breached our nation’s Capitol.” She added, “It was the first time in our nation’s history that a president tried to prevent the peaceful transfer of power.”
As the Iowa Republican primary approaches and Biden faces persistent polling challenges, there is an anticipation that he will adopt a more assertive stance against Trump. However, some Democratic strategists question the effectiveness of the “threat to democracy” message, considering the passage of three years since Jan. 6 and Trump’s tenure in the White House.
Democratic strategist James Carville emphasized the impact of daily life on public perception, stating, “People live in the economy and experience it many times a day. They don’t live on January 6th.” Meanwhile, Tim Hogan, who worked on presidential campaigns for Democratic figures, urged the Biden campaign to highlight the contrast with Trump, emphasizing the various threats posed by the former president.
Hogan referred to a recent poll indicating that 55% of Americans view Jan. 6, 2021, as an “attack on democracy that should never be forgotten,” with a majority believing Trump is likely guilty of a criminal conspiracy to overturn the election. However, he noted the growing partisan divide in views about the attack, with misinformation influencing opinions.
The poll highlighted that 25% of Americans falsely believe the FBI was responsible for the Jan. 6 attack, and partisan differences emerge regarding the nature of the pro-Trump mob’s actions. Despite these challenges, Hogan emphasized the importance of addressing the multifaceted threats posed by Trump during the campaign.
A Washington Post-University of Maryland poll from this week revealed that while Americans agree on the risk to democracy in 2024, they differ in their reasons. Democrats and independents express concern about a second Trump term, while Republicans believe democracy would weaken under another Biden term.
The speech, initially scheduled for Saturday, was rescheduled to Friday due to anticipated bad weather in Valley Forge. The campaign strategically leverages the symbolic setting to underscore Biden’s commitment to voluntarily leaving office, contrasting with Trump’s tenure. Deputy campaign manager Quentin Fulks emphasized George Washington’s relinquishing of power as a crucial precedent for American democracy.
In closed-door campaign fundraisers, Biden has often referred to Trump as his “predecessor,” but Friday’s speech could see more public and robust condemnations. Biden may specifically address Trump’s anti-immigrant comments, which he characterizes as “Nazi rhetoric,” and criticize Trump’s vision of leadership involving “revenge and retribution.”
Trump, a consistent frontrunner for the Republican nomination, faces 91 criminal charges in four felony cases, one of which relates to his efforts to overturn the 2020 election loss to Biden. Despite the legal challenges, Trump continues to deny any wrongdoing.
The campaign’s choice of locations, including the speech near Valley Forge and a recent visit to Charleston, South Carolina, emphasizes the stakes of the upcoming election. The campaign aims to highlight the ideals of freedom and democracy on which the nation was founded 250 years ago, showcasing a commitment to stand against political violence and extremism.
The Biden campaign, in its first television ad of 2024, frames the preservation of democracy as the central issue of his presidency. Although not mentioning Trump by name, the ad warns against an “extremist movement” that contradicts the basic beliefs in democracy, showcasing images of the Capitol attack and the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville in 2017.
To prepare for the speech, the White House disclosed that Biden had lunch with historians and scholars to discuss “ongoing threats to democracy and democratic institutions both here in America and around the world.” Concurrently, Vice President Kamala Harris is embarking on a series of visits to South Carolina, where she will launch a “reproductive freedoms tour” on the anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision.
As Trump conducts “commit to caucus” rallies in Iowa, the Biden campaign positions itself to address the overarching theme of preserving democracy, emphasizing the critical choice faced by Americans in the upcoming election.
Two Indian Americans have been named to Forbes’ 100 most powerful women in the world 2023 list namely US Vice President Kamala Harris and Netflix’s chief content officer Bela Bajaria. This year’s honorees represented a wide range of industries, including technology, banking, media, entertainment, politics, and philanthropy.
The Vice President of the United States has maintained her position at number three for the second year in a row. She had received recognition in the category of politics and policy. The 59-year-old created history as the first woman, the first Black person, and the first South Asian-American to become US Vice President in January 20, 2021.
Harris was also the first Indian American woman to be elected to the US Senate in 2016 and the first woman to serve as California’s Attorney General in 2010. Born to a biologist and civil rights activist from Chennai, India, Harris grew up in Oakland, California and graduated from Howard University and the University of California, Hastings College of the Law.
Bajaria was ranked at the 67th position under the media and entertainment category on the Forbes list. Born in London, she had spent her earliest years in Britain and Zambia, and then moved to Los Angeles when she was 8.
Having held the role of head of Global TV since 2020, Bajaria was appointed as Netflix’s chief content officer in January 2023. She oversees all of the streaming service’s globally distributed scripted and unscripted series, including Lupin, Bridgerton, The Queen’s Gambit, and Cobra Kai.
Before joining Netflix in 2016, Bajaria was president of Universal Television, where she was the first woman of color to oversee a studio. The 52-year-old has also featured in TIME’s 100 Most Influential People list in 2022.
Forbes also included four Indian women in their list of the 100 most powerful women in the world. The country’s finance minister, Nirmala Sitharaman, came in at number 32 in the politics and policy category. HCL Technologies chairperson and industrialist Roshni Nadar Malhotra ranked number 60 in the technology category. Soma Mondal, CEO of the Steel Authority of India, was number 70 in the business category. Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, an entrepreneur, was number 76 in the business category.
The Indian American activist Reshma Saujani was included in Forbes’ list of women who are rising to prominence but are not quite among the 100 most powerful people in the world. The Forbes Women To Watch In 2024 list also includes Mira Murati, Fei-Fei Li, Michele Bullock and Hafize Gaye Erkan.
Founder and CEO of the non- profit Girls Who Code, Saujani’s work focuses on female empowerment.
The organization works to empower women in the field of computer science, and end gender discrimination in the field. Forbes observed that over the last 11 years, the organization has educated more than 500,000 girls, women and non-binary participants.
Post Covid, Saujani has shifted her energy towards advocating for better family leave and childcare policies in the US. She founded the Marshall Plan for Moms, which has become Moms First. In an interview with Forbes Women editor Maggie McGrath, Saujani emphasized that “childcare is an economic issue, not a social issue.” Her movement has ignited a national conversation about how to support moms and is backed by A-list celebrities, activists, and business leaders. In September 2015, Saujani was named in the Fortune Magazine’s 40 under 40 list. She has authored books including: Women Who Don’t Wait in Line: Break the Mold, Lead the Way, published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in 2013, and Girls Who Code: Learn to Code and Change the World, published by Viking in August 2017, and Brave, Not Perfect: Fear Less, Fail More, and Live Bolder in 2018.
Illinois-born Saujani hails from a Gujarati Indian family settled in Chicago. She earned a bachelor’s degree in political science and speech communication from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1997, a master’s degree in public policy from Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government in 1999, and a juris doctorate from Yale Law School in 2002.
Tens of thousands are converging on Dubai this December for COP28, the annual United Nations-led international climate summit. With the urgency to avert irreversible damage from fossil fuel pollution, global leaders, negotiators, climate advocates, and industry representatives are focusing on adapting to increasingly lethal heatwaves, more powerful storms, and catastrophic sea-level rise.
In a bid to understand the nuances of the world’s most crucial climate change conference, it’s imperative to delve into the roots of COP. Over 30 years ago, a UN treaty was signed by over 150 nations to curb the alarming rise of planet-warming pollution. The inaugural Conference of the Parties (COP) convened in Berlin in 1995. In 2015, COP21 saw over 190 countries endorsing the Paris Agreement, aiming to limit global warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius, preferably to 1.5 degrees. Despite its landmark status, the agreement lacked specificity on implementation strategies.
As COP28 unfolds, controversy surrounds its host, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), a major oil-producing nation. Critics argue that appointing Sultan Al Jaber, head of the UAE’s national oil company, as COP president, creates a conflict of interest. Responding to concerns, the UAE initiated a campaign to enhance its green credentials ahead of the summit. The controversy led over 100 US Congress and European Parliament members to call for Al Jaber’s resignation, citing potential undermining of negotiations. However, some, including US climate envoy John Kerry, praised Al Jaber’s appointment, emphasizing the UAE’s commitment to emissions reduction targets.
The roster of attendees at COP28 is illustrious, with over 160 nations, including major players like the UK, France, Germany, and Japan. Notably, King Charles III will address the opening ceremony, and while Pope Francis had planned to attend, his cancellation due to health reasons has been a setback. Notably absent from the speaker list are US President Joe Biden and China’s Xi Jinping, leaders of the world’s top polluting countries. In their stead, US Vice President Kamala Harris will attend, marking a response to criticism over Biden’s absence.
A notable presence at COP28 is expected from major oil-producing countries such as Saudi Arabia, Syria, Russia, and Iran. Despite concerns that the Israel-Hamas conflict could overshadow climate action, representatives from both Israel and the Palestinian territories are slated to speak. Additionally, the UAE has extended invitations to fossil fuel executives, anticipating new commitments to decarbonize. Wall Street heavyweights, led by BlackRock CEO Larry Fink, are also expected, bringing financial perspectives to the climate talks.
Eight years post-Paris Agreement, the global stocktake at COP28 reveals minimal progress in slashing climate pollution. The first scorecard, published in September, highlights the urgent need for action. Melanie Robinson, the global climate program director for the World Resources Institute, acknowledges the wake-up call provided by the stocktake, urging a roadmap for effective climate goal achievement.
Central to COP28 are carryovers from COP27, namely finalizing a “loss and damage” fund and navigating the transition away from planet-warming fossil fuels. A crucial debate centers on whether to “phase out” or “phase down” fossil fuels. At COP27, nations like China and Saudi Arabia obstructed a proposal to phase out all fossil fuels, emphasizing the importance of unequivocal language covering all fossil fuels.
The loss and damage fund, a pivotal issue from the previous agreement, aims to channel funds from wealthy countries responsible for the majority of climate crisis impacts to poorer nations. The goal is to operationalize the fund by 2024, with a special committee recommending the World Bank as its temporary trustee. Nate Warszawski, a research associate with WRI’s International Climate Action team, underscores the delicate nature of the loss and damage fund, identifying it as a key determinant of COP28’s success or failure.
As COP28 unfolds, the world watches with anticipation, hoping for resolutions that propel global efforts toward mitigating climate change. The dynamics of this conference underscore the urgency and complexity of addressing the climate crisis on a global scale.
Indian American presidential primary candidate Nikki Haley attached little importance to her opponent Donald Trump’s lead among voters in the upcoming elections. In an interview with Fox News on November 12, Haley admitted that Trump has “strong support” but he is followed by “drama and negativity” and that Republicans will fail to win if he wins the GOP nomination.
Former President Trump has emerged as the GOP frontrunner, and polls have found him to be ahead of reigning President Joe Biden, but Haley believes the party will not benefit from his victory in the primary. “I think certainly Trump has some strong support. I’ve always said he was the right president at the right time and I agree with a lot of his policies,” she told Fox News. “The problem is, drama and chaos follow him, whether fairly or not, it is constantly following him and Americans feel it,” she added.
Haley further blamed Trump for the losses faced by GOP candidates recently and the party’s negatively impacted performance. Haley said the GOP has to “pay the price” for the former president’s presence in the party, as per a report. Haley said the Republican party should brace itself for more losses on the ballot races if Trump becomes the nominee for the Presidential elections, and endorsed herself as the better candidate.
“We need to make sure we have a new conservative leader. Republicans have lost the last seven out of eight popular votes for president. The way you do that is you send someone in there that doesn’t just beat Biden by two or three points like Trump does, you get somebody that beats Biden between nine and 13 points,” she said. Haley’s campaign had received a significant boost after the initial debates and polls suggested she could defeat President Biden by a wider margin than her primary rivals.
Haley also said she could be the candidate to lead the GOP to “win up and down the ticket, governor’s races, congressional seats, all of those seats.” She added, “It’s not just the presidential. We’re trying to win across the board. I can do that.”
Lack of Support Among South Asian Americans
Despite being prominently known as Indian American candidates in the race to the Oval Office in 2024, Republicans Vivek Ramaswamy and Nikki Haley are not as popular among or known to Asian Americans, a new poll conducted by AAPI Data and the Associated Press-National Opinion Research Center (NORC) at the University of Chicago revealed.
According to the results, while more AAPI adults have unfavorable views than favorable views of Haley and Ramaswamy, a large proportion of them said they did not know enough about the two candidates to form an opinion.
The study found that only 18 percent and 23 percent of Asian American and Pacific Islander adults had favorable views of Ramaswamy and Haley, respectively, and 36 percent viewed both candidates as unfavorable. 40 percent of the respondents said they were not familiar with Haley, while Ramaswamy is unfamiliar to 46 percent of them.
“This is the first nationally representative survey that includes the views of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders about the major presidential candidates,” said Karthick Ramakrishnan, founder and director of AAPI Data. “Rather than speculate about where AAPIs stand on candidates like Nikki Haley and Vivek Ramaswamy, we have timely and reliable data that we will continue to follow through the rest of the presidential primary season.
The survey also dug into the political inclination of AAPI communities, with about half identifying as Democrats, over a quarter identifying as Republican, and about one in five identifying as independent or having no attachment to any party.
The current President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris are viewed more favorably among the AAPI communities, while former President and current contender for the Republican nomination for the upcoming presidential elections, Donald Trump, is viewed unfavorably, as is Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
From 18-year-old Sneha Revanaur- Founder of Encode Justice working towards AI regulation in the US to veteran business leaders like Romesh and Sunil Wadhwani- co founders of non-profit Wadhwani AI– ten stellar Indian and Indian American men and women, social and business entrepreneurs, researchers and academics are in Time’s AI (artificial intelligence) 2023 list.
From running an ethical business using AI to uplift underserved communities to use of AI in medicine and bioscience and from the need for involvement of the younger demographics in AI regulation to an AI non-profit working towards solving persistent global developmental challenges-the spectrum of initiatives being run by these men and women are vast and varied in impact and scale.
Romesh and Sunil Wadhwani
Indiaspora members and billionaire brother duo Romesh and Sunil Wadhwani joined hands to channel AI towards solving global development challenges, especially in nations where people live on less than $5 a day.
They have set up Wadhwani AI- an independent nonprofit institute developing AI-based solutions for underserved communities in developing countries. A total sum of $60 million has been committed to date towards the varied initiatives of the Mumbai-based non-profit.
Wadhwani AI devotes its AI development efforts to pioneering an ecosystem of scalable solutions in health care, education, and agriculture sectors for underserved communities by partnering with governments and nonprofits across Asia, Africa and Latin America. The initiative also includes a new $5 million program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
“We thought that in the U.S., China, and Europe, AI is being leveraged to help people who are already well-off,” says Sunil Wadhwani in the Time interview, “but maybe we can make India the global leader in applying AI for social good.”
The institute partners with Indian State and Central governments to identify use cases, collect data, conduct pilots and deploy solutions. Some of the strategic programs of the institute include enabling frontline healthcare workers to feel digitally confident to engage with AI-based technology solutions, irrespective of their education, skills, and environment and developing multiple interventions across the TB care cascade and helping India’s National TB Elimination Programme (NTEP) become AI-ready.
The Wadhwani brothers said in the Time interview that India, with a diverse population of 1.4 billion, perfectly suits the Wadhwani Institute’s mission of altruistic research. “Other countries simply don’t have the combination of capabilities or opportunities that India has,” says Romesh Wadhwani.
Sneha Revanaur
Encode Justice is a youth-led, AI-focused civil-society group. It was founded by Revanaur (from San Jose, California) in 2020 to mobilize younger generations in the golden state against Proposition 25, a ballot measure that aimed to replace cash bail with a risk-based algorithm.
After the initiative was defeated, the group focused on educating and galvanizing peers around AI policy advocacy. The group now has 800 young members in 30 countries around the world and is compared to the preceding youth-led climate and gun-control movements.
At the urging of many in the AI industry, Washington appears to be moving fast on AI regulation.
This summer, Revanur helped organize an open letter urging congressional leaders and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy to include more young people on AI oversight and advisory boards. Soon after, she was invited to attend a roundtable discussion on AI hosted by Vice President Kamala Harris.
Manu Chopra
Friend of Indiaspora, Manu Chopra, co-founded Karya with Vivek Seshadri with an ambitious vision of setting up a network of ethical data usage where data can both financially and technologically empower traditionally underserved communities.
The USD $100 billion data generation industry offers the opportunity to create this ecosystem and impact the lives of millions of people.
Currently, most dataset generation work goes to urban communities or are outsourced to Kenya or the Philippines- where workers are often exploited; offered sub-minimum wages and are often overworked. Median hourly wages are estimated at $0.1-0.5 per hour, while datasets sell for over 200x this price. “With AI, we have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to move millions of rural Indians out of poverty, sustainably. At Karya, we are reimagining how AI models are trained. In an industry where for-profit companies pay data workers an average of 10 – 20 cents per hour, we pay our workers 50 times the industry standard, a minimum wage of USD 5/ hour,” tells Chopra.
Karya strives to be an ethical and high-quality AI/ML data company in the world, creating a win-win solution for both technology companies and data workers. Their ambitious goal is to use digital work to economically impact 100 million rural Indians by 2030. Currently Karya employs 30,000 workers.
“We work with over 200 of India’s top non-profits, self help groups and FPOs (farmer collectives) across 22 states in India to identify worker communities who would benefit the most from Karya’s work opportunities, tells Chopra. Karya has multiple on-going and up-coming projects across several states in rural India.
Tushita Gupta
Tushita Gupta co-founded Refiberd with Sarika Bajaj in 2020 with the goal of bringing the cutting-edge of AI research to the fashion industry to help solve the global textile waste crisis.
From their deep research backgrounds in artificial intelligence and textile engineering, the founders believe in the power of technology to unlock a 100% circular economy.
Gupta is the CTO at Refibred and is a patent-pending AI scientist. She previously worked on drug discovery. She has a Bachelors and Masters from Carnegie Mellon.
The amount of textiles trashed in the U.S. has almost doubled in recent years, going from nearly 9,500 tons in 2000 to just over 17,000 tons in 2018, according to the latest government data. And the vast majority of this—about 85%—goes to landfill or is incinerated rather than being recycled or donated.
The California-based company aims to provide the most accurate summary of what types of materials are in any given textile item. Successful recycling depends on knowing what something is made of, so that items can be precisely sorted into like materials. This is particularly true for chemical recycling—which breaks down synthetic materials like nylon and polyester that were once impossible to recycle. Once the materials are recycled, they can be remade into fabric for new textiles—cutting waste and encouraging circularity in the fashion industry.
In January, Refiberd raised over $3.4 million in seed funding, and it’s now running a series of pilot projects in the U.S. and Europe. Four companies are sending Refiberd a couple hundred pounds of textile waste to sort.
Neal Khosla
Another Indian American with a checkered legacy working to utilize AI in the healthcare space is Neal Khosla-CEO and co-founder of Curai Health, the AI-assisted telehealth startup that the 30-year-old Khosla co-founded in 2017.
Curai is beyond your standard subscription-based virtual care service.
The company charges $15 a month (if the cost isn’t covered by their employer) for users to text 24/7 with health care professionals who can answer questions, create care plans, write prescriptions, and, if necessary, refer users to specialists.
Curai’s AI essentially functions as an assistant for doctors, handling straightforward tasks to free up their time for more complex work. For example, collecting the information patients provide during their intake questionnaires or sending a follow-up message after the conversation to see how a patient is doing.
Utilizing the power of AI in this way allows the clinicians working with Curai to see many more patients.
So far, the startup has received more than $50 million in funding from General Catalyst, Morningside Ventures, and Khosla Ventures, the firm founded by Khosla’s father, the billionaire venture capitalist Vinod Khosla.
Pushmeet Kohli
Pushmeet Kohli is the Vice President of Research at Google DeepMind. He leads both Google DeepMind’s AI for Science project that uses AI to solve scientific grand challenges, and its Responsible and Reliable AI team, which monitors and regulates DeepMind’s AI systems.
Kohli joined DeepMind in 2017 and soon set up the Safe and Reliable AI team, which later changed its name. (DeepMind merged with a division of Google in April to become Google DeepMind.)
Some of the projects of the two teams he leads, includes AlphaFold, used by over 1 million researchers. It can predict the structures of proteins from their amino-acid structure in seconds- a previously time intensive task that took months or years. Better understanding of protein structures will accelerate drug discovery and may pave the way for further scientific breakthroughs.
Recently, Kohli’s AI for Science team also announced AlphaTensor, an AI system that builds on AlphaZero, which shows extraordinary performance across a range of games including Go, and can discover new algorithms.
He thinks that AI, by improving our understanding of the world, will ultimately solve more problems than it creates. He views the complex challenges he hopes AI will help address, such as climate change and pandemics.
Kalika Bali
Kalika Bali is a Principal Researcher at Microsoft Research in Bangalore working in the areas of Machine Learning, Natural Language Systems and Applications, and Technology for Emerging Markets. Her research interests are Speech and Language Technology especially in the use of linguistic models for building technology that offers a more natural Human-Computer and Computer-Mediated interactions.
She is currently working on Project Mélange to understand, process and generate Code-mixed language data for both text and speech. Code-mixing or use of multiple languages in a single conversation is a phenomenon that is observed in all multilingual societies. Though Code-mixing has been studied in the past as a feature of conversational speech, the rapid rise of social-media and other online forums has made it a common phenomenon for text as well. Conversational speech applications, like personal assistants and speech-to-speech translations, make it vital to model this in speech also.
“Recently, I have become interested in how social and pragmatic functions affect language use, in code-mixed as well as monolingual conversations, and how to build effective computational models of sociolinguistics and pragmatics that can lead to more aware Artificial Intelligence,” reads Bali’s bio on the Microsoft site.
“I am also very passionate about NLP and Speech technology for Indian Languages. I believe that local language technology, especially with speech interfaces, can help millions of people gain entry into a world that is till now almost inaccessible to them. I have served, and continue to serve, on several government and other committees that work on Indian Language Technologies and Linguistic Resources and Standards for NLP/Speech.”
Arvind Narayanan and Sayash Kapoor
Arvind Narayanan is a professor of computer science at Princeton University and the director of the Center for Information Technology Policy.
He co-authored a textbook on fairness and machine learning and is currently co-authoring a book on AI Snake Oil with Sayash Kapoor, one of his Ph.D. students.
The book that will be published next year was inspired after a talk that he gave in 2019 titled “How to recognize AI snake oil” went viral and the slides were downloaded tens of thousands of times and his tweets were viewed by millions.
Narayanan has led the Princeton Web Transparency and Accountability Project to uncover how companies collect and use our personal information. His work was among the first to show how machine learning reflects cultural stereotypes, and his doctoral research showed the fundamental limits of de-identification. Narayanan is a recipient of the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), twice a recipient of the Privacy Enhancing Technologies Award, and thrice a recipient of the Privacy Papers for Policy Makers Award.
Narayanan and Kapoor have been sharing their ideas as they develop and comment on recent developments in AI on their Substack, AI Snake Oil. (Courtesy: Indiaspora.com)
~ Directed by Rohan Sippy, the second season will witness a face-off between Amit Sadh and Gulshan Devaiah’s characters ~
Global, 21st September 2023: ZEE5 Global, the world’s largest streaming platform for South Asian content, announces the second season of the much-awaited series, ‘Duranga’. The official adaptation of the Korean show, ‘Flower of Evil’, Duranga S1 went on to become a much-loved romantic thriller series. It kept the audiences hooked to their screens with the constant twists and turns. Now the second season will see the return of Gulshan Devaiah, Drashti Dhami, Barkha Sen Gupta, Rajesh Khattar reprising their respective roles and it will see Amit Sadh play a critical lead role.
Produced by Goldie Behl’s Rose Audio Visuals and directed by Rohan Sippy, Duranga S2 will witness the real Sammit Patel [Played by Amit Sadh] wake up from coma and go after Abhishek Banne [played by Gulshan Devaiah] who has been living as Sammit Patel. Amit Sadh will be seen portraying a critical role, challenging Gulshan Devaiah to put everything at stake to protect his family. These three central characters’ aims will collide during this season and keep the viewers on the edge of their seats.
Archana Anand, Chief Business Officer, ZEE5 Global said, “The success of the first season of Duranga served as a testament to the increasing appetite for thrillers on the platform. We are happy to now announce the much-awaited second season of the series for our viewers. We are confident that this season will raise the bar for romantic thrillers for viewers across the globe.”
Producer Goldie Behlsaid, “I am grateful for the overwhelming reaction to season 1 of Duranga. I am even more excited for season 2 which is sharper, stronger and has far more twists and turns. Season 1 ended on a cliffhanger where we saw the character of Amit Sadh coming out of a coma. Season 2 takes off from there but in a far more complex and entertaining manner. It’s been a pleasure collaborating with Rohan Sippy, Drashti Dhami, Gulshan Devaiah and Amit Sadh; all brilliant at their craft. A heartfelt thank you to ZEE5 Global and Nimisha Pandey who have been excellent to work with. I cannot wait for the audience to savour this season”.
Director Rohan Sippysaid, “I’m very thankful that I got an opportunity to work once again with Rose & ZEE5 Global, this time to take a successful franchise like Duranga forward. The cast and crew have worked very hard in all departments to add even more excitement and emotional engagement this time around, and we can’t wait to share it with the audience very soon!”.
Watch the romantic thriller series ‘Duranga 2 coming soon on ZEE5 Global
Viewers can catch ZEE5 Global’s unmissable slate and stock up on their yearlong entertainment by subscribing to the Annual pack and grabbing the limited-time special offer price.
Users can download the ZEE5 Global app from Google Play Store / iOS App Store. It is available on Roku devices, Apple TVs, Android TVs, Amazon Fire TV and Samsung Smart TVs and on www.ZEE5.com
About ZEE5 Global
ZEE5 Global is the digital entertainment destination launched by Zee Entertainment Enterprises Limited (ZEEL), a global Media and Entertainment powerhouse. The platform launched across 190+ countries in October 2018 and has content across 18 languages: Hindi, English, Bengali, Malayalam, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Marathi, Oriya, Bhojpuri, Gujarati, Punjabi, including six international languages Malay, Thai, Bahasa, Urdu, Bangla and Arabic. ZEE5 Global is home to 200,000+ hours of on-demand content. The platform brings together the best of Originals, Movies and TV Shows, Music, Health and Lifestyle content in one destination. In addition, ZEE5 Global offers features like 15 navigational languages, content download options, seamless video playback and Voice Search.
The Biden administration has unveiled new proposals to remove medical bills from credit reports. White House officials on Thursday said they are pursuing the effort to lessen Americans’
medical debt burden as millions of people contend with the higher cost of living and historic inflation. Medical debt has lowered people’s credit scores, which affects their ability to buy a
home, get a mortgage or own a small business, Vice President Kamala Harris said in a call with reporters announcing the initiative. If the rule is finalized, consumer credit companies would be
barred from including medical debt and collection information on reports that creditors use to make underwriting decisions.
As the US tries to break the stranglehold of China on its supply chains, especially in hi-tech, India is emerging as a venue for what is now called ‘friendshoring’ – developing manufacturing in friendly countries that can be reliable partners. From being a recipient of food aid from the US seven decades ago, India has emerged as a partner in defence, space, health and technology.
China, intriguingly, has been a constant factor in the trajectory of India-United States relations, putting them at odds in the first years after Independence but now propelling them to the apex.
In the years after Independence, India under Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru backed Beijing while the US supported Taiwan laying the foundation for the many differences between them that would continue in many forms. Now it is China with its aggressive postures from the Himalayas to the South China Sea and beyond that helping strengthen bonds between India and US that share worries about it.
Eurasia Review
Yet, even as the two largest democracies draw closer, a shadow of ambiguity persists in their ties.
India still will not back the US unambiguously, is still dangerously reliant on Russia for defence, and is wary of going too far in provoking China while appearing with them on international forums. And it is the China factor that makes Washington so forgiving of India’s neutrality ignoring calls, especially in the US media tinged with hostility to India, especially under the BJP.
Those in the administration with an unblinkered view of geopolitics know that were India to break with Russia, its defences would be degraded making it vulnerable to China and thus reduce its value as a strategic partner.
Leaving geopolitics aside, perhaps the most momentous development is a person of Indian heritage, Kamala Harris, holding the second highest office in the US – something Franklin D Roosevelt, the US president who laid the groundwork for India becoming free of the colonial yoke, might not have dreamt of.
How initial warmth turned to fissures
Modern India’s ties to the US can be traced to Roosevelt forcing British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, the archetypical racist colonialist, into signing the 1941 Atlantic Charter promising independence for colonies with a clause about self-determination.
“America won’t help England in this war simply so that she will be able to continue to ride roughshod over colonial peoples”, Roosevelt is said to have warned the imperialist.
Roosevelt, who tried unsuccessfully to have an emissary mediate between the British and India’s Independence movement leaders, could not force Churchill to implement it as long as World War II was raging. But ultimately, Roosevelt’s idea prevailed and India became free under both their successors, US President Harry Truman and British Prime Minister Clement Atlee.
Truman had high expectations of a democratic India and sent Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru his own plane to bring him from London and went out of his way to greet him on arrival and feted him in 1949.
But China intervened. With Cold War both leaders were hung up on China – Truman was backing Taiwan, then officially recognised as China at the UN and was set against a Communist Beijing, and wanted Nehru, who was behind Mao Zedong, to switch sides.
That was the first overt sign of the fissures between the two countries, yet about three-quarters of a century later, it is China that is drawing them closer.
Truman’s Secretary of State Dean Acheson declared Nehru “one of the most difficult persons”. Shortly after the visit, Nehru declared more firmly the policy of not aligning with blocs, which would later become the concept of non-alignment.
In the Korean War that broke out a year later when the US and Beijing’s forces clashed, India stood neutral, much to the chagrin of Washington.
But the US continued with economic assistance for India and in 1951 Truman pushed through the India Emergency Food Assistance Act when India faced severe food shortage.
The 1962 China war and aftermatch
Engulfed in an ideological fog, Nehru ramped up his rhetoric of nonalignment, which in effect was perceived as critical of the West. The tenuous relationship with Washington continued with a slight warming of ties between Nehru and the wartime general President Dwight Eisenhower, who expressed respect for Nehru in his memoir. In 1959, Eisenhower became the first US president to visit India.
Meanwhile, Pakistan had grown closer to the US, joining the two now-defunct defence collectives, SEATO and CENTO, and benefitted militarily from the US.
India Today
The China war in 1962 shocked Nehru into reality and temporarily abandoning his veneer of nonalignment sought US military aid from President John F Kennedy, which he received.
The Soviet Union, which had broken up with China, began supplying arms to India, notably the MIG21 fighter jets, although the supply began after the war.
The Kennedy administration initially supported Nehru’s request for setting up a massive state-owned steel plant at Bokaro, viewed as a socialist project it faced political opposition. Moscow stepped in to help India set up the steel plant further deepening ties between the two countries.
That was further strengthened at the cost of Washington during the 1965 Pakistan War when Islamabad flung advanced US weaponry at India, which was using mostly British and Soviet arms.
Yet, when the danger of famine loomed over India, President Lyndon Johnson rushed food aid to India in 1966, while also extracting promises to reform agriculture and to tone down criticism of the US internationally. India and the US had already been collaborating in agriculture development and what was probably the greatest achievement in India-US cooperation followed, helping India achieve food self-sufficiency through the Green Revolution in a few short years and making it one of the nations that can extend food aid to others.
The 1971 Bangladesh and dip in ties
The 1971 Bangladesh War of Independence is the nadir in New Delhi-Washington relations. A month before the War, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi visited Washington and met with President Richard Nixon, asking for help to temper the Pakistani military crackdown on what was then East Pakistan and to deal with the crisis of refugees fleeing army terror.
His vulgar personal comments about Indira Gandhi and about Indians emerged from White House tapes that were made public decades later.
Given the deep ties with Pakistan and Islamabad acting as the broker for the US to establish relations with China, Nixon made the infamous “tilt” to Pakistan and tried to intimidate India by sending the Seventh Fleet to the Bay of Bengal.
Under Presidents Jimmy Carter, who visited India, Ronald Reagan, who warmly received both Indira Gandhi and her son Rajiv who succeeded her, and George Bush, the senior, the two countries plodded on with no breakthroughs in their relations.
India’s nuclear test brought sanctions against it from President Bill Clinton, marking another diplomacy dip between the two nations.
Although relations with India had had a rocky start at the start of his administration due to Secretary of State Madeline Albright’s perceived hostility, Clinton came through when Pakistan sent its forces into Kargil in Kashmir in 1999.
A war seeming likely when India began to root out Islamabad’s forces, Clinton called Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to Washington and read him the riot act, forcing him and then-military chief Pervez Musharraf to withdraw their troops.
The beginning of the embrace
With the emergence of the Indian American community and the onset of India’s economic liberalisation, Clinton started the steps that have led to the embrace of the two countries now.
His visit to India the next year, was the first visit by a US president in 22 years, Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee went to Washington the same year.
A bipartisan consensus on cooperation with India was becoming entrenched and President George W Bush in 2001 ended all the sanctions against India, that were already beginning to be relaxed.
The 2001 terrorist attack on the US that was orchestrated by Pakistan’s allies in Afghanistan brought a sense of urgency to New Delhi’s and Washington’s war on terror, even as Islamabad took advantage of its geography in the US invasion of Afghanistan.
India and the US began joint military exercises in 2002 and in 2005 signed an agreement on the framework for defence cooperation.
That year the two countries also signed the landmark Civil Nuclear Agreement that allowed them to resume cooperation in the area, while having an impact beyond their borders facilitating trade in nuclear equipment and materials.
The agreement became the centre-piece of the era of Bush and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Singh visited Washington in 2005 to discuss it, and in 2008 after it was ok’d by Congress, while Bush went to India in 2006 to finalise it, and during that trip the two countries agreed to increase trade and loosen restrictions.
Singh returned to Washington the next year on a state visit at the invitation of President Barack Obama, and made another visit in 2013. The cerebral Indian leader bonded with the intellectual American and the relations in economy and defence took off.
China has again taken the centre in the relations between the US and India, but this time with a convergence – India jolted from the Nehruvian illusion and the US waking up to the looming threats in the economy, trade and, more importantly, security.
The Quad, the group of India, the US, Australia and Japan, that was to play a greater role later on was launched in 2007, but collapsed quickly when Canberra cooled towards Washington.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, without ideological baggage and with a fresh outlook on the world, opened up the avenues for ties that bind closer. Once shunned by the US, his election made Washington realise the new realities of India and Obama quickly invited him to visit in 2014.
He arrived like a rock star feted by tens of thousands of Indian Americans. Besides vowing to boost trade, the two leaders turned their focus to climate change and agree on programmes on green energy.
Obama was the guest at India’s Republic Day celebration the next year.
In 2016, Modi addressed a joint session of Congress for the first time and the US gave India the status of Major Defence Partner, which led to an agreement on an agreement to deepen military cooperation
At President Donald Trump’s invitation, Modi visited Washington in 2017 and in 2019 the two of them went together to Houston and paraded at an event billed as “Howdy Modi” that drew about 50,000 people.
Trump went to India in 2020 for his last foreign trip as president and was greeted by a roaring crowd of about 100,000 in Ahmedabad.
During the Covid pandemic, India sent some medicines at the request of Trump, as well as some medical supplies, while the US sent medical equipment.
While New Delhi was already sending vaccines to many countries, the Quad which was revived in 2017 devised a joint programme to provide developing countries with vaccines made by India.
On the trade front, Modi’s “Make in India” clashed with Trump’s “America First” resulting in a mini-trade-war. Trump ended preferential trade status for some Indian products under the Generalised Scheme of Preferences programme asserting that New Delhi does not give “equitable” access to Indian markets for some US products – among them whisky and motorcycles.
India retaliated by hiking tariffs on 28 products, among them almonds, and the US hit back with more duties on Indian aluminium and steel imports.
But they went ahead on the defence and security front, signing a slew of pacts including the Communications Compatibility and Security Agreement (COMCASA) that gives New Delhi access to advanced technologies and realtime military data and the Basic Exchange and Cooperation Agreement (BECA) for intelligence-sharing.
What Next for U.S.-India Military Ties?
A new agreement between top U.S. and Indian officials will deepen military cooperation and bolster strategic tie…
The unthinkable happens
When President Joe Biden came into office and the full impact of China on security, trade and the economy hit him, he revved up cooperation with India.
The Quad meetings were raised to summit status and Modi attended it in Washington in 2021.
Ignoring opposition from the vociferous left in the Democratic Party and the ideologically liberal mainstream media, Biden invited Modi for a state visit last month.
Not only was the US selling India advanced military equipment worth several billions of dollars, but it was also authorising the production of military jet engines jointly in India while promoting cooperation in defence production, something unthinkable some years ago.
(The writer is Nonresident Fellow, Society for Policy Studies, New Delhi, Views are personal) Read more at: https://www.southasiamonitor.org/spotlight/how-china-factor-influenced-us-india-ties-last-76-years
A Bipartisan US Congressional delegation in India for the nation’s 77th Independence Day met with India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday, August 16, 2023 in New Delhi. During the meeting, Modi praised the bipartisan support as key to strengthening the bilateral strategic relationship between the two democracies.
The delegation included US Representative Ro Khanna of California, Democratic co-chair of the India Caucus, Rep. Michael Waltz of Florida, Republican co-chair of the India Caucus, as well as Representatives Ed Case, D-Hawaii, Kat Cammack, R-Florida, Deborah Ross, D-North Carolina, Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas, Rich McCormick, R-Georgia, and Shri Thanedar, D-Michigan.
Taking to X, formerly known as Twitter, PM Modi said, “Glad to receive a Congressional delegation from US, including co-chairs of India Caucus in the House of Representatives, Rep. @RoKhanna and Rep. @michaelgwaltz. Strong bipartisan support from the US Congress is instrumental in further elevating India-US Comprehensive Global Strategic Partnership.”
Picture : New India Abroad
Welcoming the delegation to India, PM Modi conveyed his appreciation for the “consistent and bipartisan support” of the US Congress and highlighted his recent visit. “Prime Minister fondly recalled his historic State Visit to the US in June at the invitation of President Biden during which he had an opportunity to address a Joint Session of the US Congress for a second time,” the Prime Minister’s office said in a press release on Wednesday.
“Prime Minister and the US delegation highlighted that the India-US Comprehensive Global Strategic Partnership is based on shared democratic values, respect for rule of law and strong people-to-people ties,” the PMO said.
During his June visit to US, PM Modi also attended various events, apart from the address to Congress. He was hosted by Biden as well as First Lady Jill Biden for a state dinner at the White House as well as a State Luncheon by the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and US Vice President Kamala Harris.
External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar also met US Congressional delegation on August 16, and discussed the transformation underway in India. The two sides exchanged views on advancing the bilateral partnership between India and US. They discussed the global situation and collaboration between India and US on multilateral, regional and global issues.
“A good interaction with US Congressional delegation today. Glad they could join as we celebrated #IndependenceDay. Discussed the transformation underway in India, especially its outcomes of better governance. Shared our aspirations and expectations for Amritkaal. Also exchanged views on our advancing bilateral partnership. Shared perspectives on the global situation and our collaboration on multilateral, regional and global issues,” Minister Jaishankar tweeted after the meeting.
“Representatives Khanna, Thanedar, Waltz and others are doing a great service to the bilateral relationship in undertaking this visit. The Indian Embassy in Washington, DC and several other stakeholders have been working closely with them to create an impactful itinerary,” says Sanjeev Joshipura, the Washington DC based executive director of Indiaspora.
This historic visit holds symbolic significance, marking the first time Indian American lawmakers are part of a US House delegation to India, highlighting the growing influence of Indian Americans in US politics and their commitment to enhancing bilateral relations.
For Rep. Khanna, this is history coming full circle. His grandfather Amarnath Vidyalankar was an Indian freedom fighter who spent four years in jail alongside Gandhi and later was part of India’s first parliament.
“As co-chairs of the Congressional Caucus on India and Indian Americans, we are proud to lead a bipartisan delegation to India. We will be there to discuss how to strengthen economic and defense ties between our two counties, the oldest and largest democracies,” Khanna said prior ro his visit to India.
“Both of us believe that the U.S. India relationship will be a defining one of the 21st century. India is a key partner in ensuring multipolarity in Asia and the denial of China as a hegemon. We must continue to strive to make progress and build our partnership based on our shared founding values of democracy, freedom of the press and assembly, and human rights. This delegation is a historic opportunity to drive further collaboration and advance shared aims,” Khanna said
Earlier this year, Khanna and Waltz hosted a historic US-India Summit on the Hill featuring panels and remarks from government leaders, experts, and Indian American leaders from across the country.
“His grandfather Amarnath Vidyalankar was an Indian freedom fighter who spent four years in jail alongside Gandhi and later was part of India’s first parliament,” the US government said in its press release referring to the history Ro Khanna and his family share with respect to the Indian Freedom struggle.
On his visit to India, Khanna said, “As co-chairs of the Congressional Caucus on India and Indian Americans, we are proud to lead a bipartisan delegation to India. We will be there to discuss how to strengthen economic and defense ties between our two counties, the oldest and largest democracies.”
The rapid rise of Indian Americans from politics to administration, entrepreneurship to technology, medicine to hospitality, science to academia has put the global spotlight like never before on the high-achieving four million-plus strong diaspora.
The community happens to be the most educated with the highest median income in the US, with an average household earning of $123,700 — making them the top earners in the US among other Asians in the country.
As the profile of the Indian American community — now the second-largest immigrant group in the US — has grown, so too has its economic, political, and social influence, according to a recent Carnegie Endowment study.
In 2010, only 18 per cent of Americans saw India as “very important” to the United States, according to The Chicago Council survey.
Now, India is perceived by Americans as their seventh favourite nation in the world, with 70 per cent of people viewing India favourably in 2023, says a Gallup survey.
Picture : TheUNN
Much of how America views India today can be attributed to the success of this community, which according to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has played a significant role in the all-round development of the nation they live in and also strengthened the India-US relationship.
The fifth largest economy of the world, India today is seen in the US as a strong bilateral partner sharing common democratic values with broad-based and multi-sectoral cooperation in sectors like trade and investment, defence and security, education, science and technology, cyber security, etc.
American businesses heavily rely on highly-skilled workers from India to fill the gaps in IT and engineering sectors via the H-1B visa programme. These visa holders create prospects for US citizens, by enabling companies to invest in domestic operations instead of sending jobs abroad.
As US Ambassador Eric Garcetti recently said: “India is a place where dreams become reality every day. Our counties have so much in common. Indian dreams and American dreams are two sides of the same coin.”
Addressing the 2019 Pravasi Bharatiya Divas, then Foreign Minister late Sushma Swaraj had noted that while the Indian diaspora started migrating centuries ago, it was the migration of the educated, highly-skilled and dynamic young Indians that brought laurels to India.
The dominance of Sundar Pichai, Satya Nadella, and Parag Agarwal in the IT sector has strengthened the image of India in the US as a technology powerhouse and a source of quality human resources.
With US Vice President Kamala Harris sitting atop the political ladder, the US House of Representatives has five Indian Americans — Ami Bera, Ro Khanna, Raja Krishnamoorthi, Pramila Jayapal and Shri Thanedar.
There are close to 60 Indian-American CEOs in Fortune 500. Even though Indians are just 1 per cent of the American population, they are more than 10 per cent of the Fortune 500 CEOs with the likes of Laxman Narasimhan (Starbucks) and Raj Subramaniam (FedEx).
The US now has 20,000 Indian-American professors and at least a third of companies in the Silicon Valley that come for funding, and have an Indian American co-founder, according to Indiaspora founder M.R. Rangaswami.
According to foreign policy experts, it is the success of this community, which has dramatically changed the US perception of Indians and India, with its ability to spread Indian soft power, lobby for India’s national interests, and contribute economically to their mother country’s rise.
As part of “soft diplomacy”, Indian-Americans played a pivotal role in the fructification of the historic Indo-US nuclear deal in 2005.
The community also urged the political establishment — right from the Oval Office down to statehouses — to send aid worth at least half-a-billion dollars to India during the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Vice President Kamala Harris officiated at a July 10, 2023, swearing-in ceremony for Geeta Rao Gupta, PhD, the Biden Administration’s choice for Global Women’s Issues Ambassador.
The ceremony was held at the Vice President’s Ceremonial Office in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building in Washington, D.C., where Gupta was accompanied by her husband, Arvind and daughter Nayna, sister-in-law Manjuli Maheshwari, and friend Carolina Rojas.
Following the brief oath-taking, Vice President Harris tweeted, “Congratulations to Geeta Rao Gupta, our next Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women’s Issues at the State Department. A lifelong advocate, Ambassador Gupta will continue the fight to lift up women and girls everywhere and to secure their basic freedoms and rights.”
The Bombay-born Gupta was cleared by the US Senate on May 12, and soon after her swearing-in, she was off on a diplomatic mission to several countries.
A graduate of Delhi University with a PhD from Bangalore University, Gupta has been a well-known women’s issues leader, and is the fourth Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women’s Issues at the State Department, and the first woman of color to hold that position.
Among those credited for pushing her candidature are Senators Charles Schumer, D-NY, Democratic Majority Leader; Jeanne Shaheen, Tim Kaine, and Robert Menendez.
Gupta was most recently at the United Nations Foundation as Executive Director of the 3D Program for Girls and Women .
Prior to that she was Deputy Executive Director at UN International Chiildren’s Education Fund for five years; was a Senior Fellow at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
She served her longest at the International Center for Research on Women, ICRW, where she rose to become President of the organization, starting as a Project Manager in 1989.
The former vice president draws the support of 26% of voters nationally who plan to vote in 2020 Democratic nominating contests, the survey released Thursday found. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., trails him at 19%.
Sens. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., and Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., each get 13% of support, according to the poll. South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg rounds out the top five contenders at 7%. Former Rep. Beto O’Rourke and entrepreneur Andrew Yang both garner 2% of support, and no other candidate in the field of about two dozen draws more than 1%.
The survey largely squares with what recent polls have found about the contenders in the race to challenge President Donald Trump next year. While Biden jumped out to a more substantial lead in early polls, surveys suggest a tighter contest after the first Democratic debate last month introduced more voters to the field.
Much can change before Democratic voters start choosing their nominee. The first-in-the-nation Iowa caucus sits about seven months away.
Only 12% of respondents to the NBC/WSJ poll say they definitely made up their minds about who they will support next year. Asked about their second choices for president, 14% of respondents chose Harris. She was followed by Warren at 13% and Sanders at 12%. Meanwhile, 10% of respondents picked Biden as their second choice, and 8% chose Buttigieg.
The former vice president comfortably leads the field among African-American Democratic primary voters, according to the NBC/WSJ poll. He garners 46% of support, trailed distantly by Harris at 17%. Among non-white primary voters, Biden draws 33% of support, followed by Harris at 16%, Sanders at 15% and Warren at 14%.
Biden leads among primary voters who consider themselves moderate or conservative. Warren has an edge over Sanders among liberal respondents.
Do voters want big or small changes?
One core issue that will define the Democratic primary is whether voters want sweeping overhauls or incremental change. For example, Sanders and Warren have backed a single-payer “Medicare for All” system and massive student debt forgiveness. Biden and others have cautioned against Medicare for All or widespread debt cancellation, calling the plans too expensive.
More than half, or 54%, of Democratic primary voters said they want a candidate who “proposes larger scale policies that cost more and might be harder to pass into law, but could bring major change” on issues such as health care, climate change, college affordability and economic opportunity. Meanwhile, 41% responded that they prefer a candidate who “proposes smaller scale policies that cost less a Among all registered voters, 44% support a single-payer health care system, versus 49% who oppose it.
The poll also questioned voters about whether they back a candidate based more on ideology or their ability to deny Trump a second term in the White House. Among Democrats primary voters, 51% said they want a candidate who comes close to their views on issues. Meanwhile, 45% responded that they want a candidate with the best chance to defeat the president.
Out of those who consider beating Trump most important, 34% choose Biden, followed by Warren at 21% and Harris at 16%. Among respondents who say they prefer to agree on issues, Biden and Warren are tied at 18%, while Harris garners 17% of support.
The survey was taken after the first Democratic debate in Miami, which appeared to reflect well on Harris and Warren. Nearly half — 47% — of Democratic primary voters who watched at least some of the debates or paid close attention to news coverage of them said Harris most impressed them. About a third responded that Warren impressed them most.
In response to US President Donald Trump announced his “merit based” immigration proposal, Democrat Senator Kamala Harris invoked her unique background as a presidential candidate — being the daughter of an Indian immigrant.
“I found the announcement today to be shortsighted,” CNN quoted Harris as saying on Thursday before an Asian American audience in Las Vegas.
On the plan’s intention to award immigrants certain points based on education or skills, Harris said: “We cannot allow people to start parsing and pointing fingers and creating hierarchies among immigrants.
“The beauty of the tradition of our country has been to say, when you walk through the door, you are equal. We spoke those words in 1776, ‘we are all equal’ and should be treated that way. Not, oh well, if you come from this place, you might only have a certain number of points, and if you come from that place you might have a different number of points.”
Asians have historically immigrated as family units, Harris added.
“It is, and has always been, about family. And that was completely overlooked, and I would suggest, denied, in the way the policy was outlined today.”
At the event hosted by an Asian American group, One APIA Nevada, Harris dove into her barrier-breaking election to the US Senate as the first South Asian to serve in the body’s history. She acknowledged her presidential run as a biracial woman helping to shatter notions about being black, Asian and a woman.
In her campaign stump speech, Harris always includes stories about how her mother, Shyamala Gopalan, impacted every aspect of her life. And while she has spoken about visits to India during her book tour, Harris on the trail has leaned far more into the African American identity her mother raised her to embrace.
An audience member asked Harris if she would consider wearing a traditional Indian saree to her inauguration.
“Let’s first win,” Harris responded. “My mother raised us with a very strong appreciation for our cultural background and pride. Celebrations that we all participate in regardless of how our last name is spelled. It’s the beauty of who we are as a nation.” (IANS)
An Indian-American political action committee (PAC) has endorsed Democratic presidential candidate Senator Kamala Harris of Indian and Jamaican descent for the 2020 presidential race.
“In such a critically important election, one that will shape policy and politics for generations to come, Indian Americans can’t afford to stay on the sidelines,” the Indian American Impact Fund’s co-founder Raj Goyle said in a statement last week. Goyle, also a former Kansas state lawmaker, said it was for that reason that the organization chose to be “the first Indian-American or Asian-American political organization to endorse” Harris, whose mother was from Chennai, Tamil Nadu, media reports say.
“In the coming months, we look forward to mobilizing our network of resources to ensure Senator Harris secures the Democratic nomination and is elected the next president of the U.S.,” Goyle said.
Harris thanked the Impact Fund for the endorsement. “This endorsement and the support of the Indian American Impact Fund and its members means so much to me,” she said in a statement. “Together, we will fight for an America that restores the values of truth and justice and works for working people, from raising incomes to expanding health care.”
The Impact Fund Executive Director and former Maryland state delegate Aruna Miller said her group was “proud to endorse” Harris. “She is a tested leader who has demonstrated, throughout her career, a strong commitment to our community’s progressive and pluralistic values,” Miller said.
Harris, one of the first Democrats to launch the presidential campaign in this election cycle, is also one of the front-runners at the moment. If elected, she will become the first woman, the first Indian-American, the first Asian American, and the first African American woman to serve as president.
Meanwhile, Sen. Kamala Harris released 15 years of her tax returns las week, showing that she and her husband earned almost $1.9 million in 2018. Most of the adjusted gross income of $1,884,319 in 2018 reported by Harris, D-Calif., came from her husband Doug Emhoff’s earnings as a lawyer. Harris reported $157,352 in Senate salary and $320,125 in net profit from the memoir she released before announcing her campaign.
Tulsi Gabbard, the first Hindu US Congresswoman and Democratic 2020 presidential candidate, has vastly outraised Senator Kamala Harris of Indian and Jamaican descent among Indian-American donors in the 2020 presidential fundraising derby so far.
Gabbard, who is a Hindu American but not Indian-American, has raised more than $237,000, from the community. In comparison, Harris, daughter of an Indian American mother and Jamaican American father, has so far raised only $72,606 from the community, according to AAPI Data, which publishes data and policy research on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders.
In a clear sign that Harris, one of the strongest contenders in the crowded 2020 Democratic field, has not been fully embraced by the community, the Senator even trails New Jersey’s Corey Booker among Indian-Americans, the American Bazaar reported on Saturday.
Booker has raised more than $131,000 from Indian Americans. A big reason for that is New Jersey is home to nearly 370,000 Indian Americans. But Harris’ home state of California has the largest Indian American population in the country – more than 712,000. Yet, her campaign hasn’t received traction among Indian American campaign donors, the AAPI Data research reveals.
Historically, Indian Americans have donated huge amounts to congressional and gubernatorial candidates from the community. However, their track record in bankrolling candidates from the community so far is spotty. In the last presidential election cycle, the campaign of former Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal attracted only lukewarm support of the community.
US Democratic presidential candidate Senator Kamala Harris, who is of Indian and Jamaican descent, has announced that her campaign raised $12 million in the first quarter of 2019 from more than 218,000 individual contributions.
Harris, who is seeking the Democratic presidential nomination, became the second major candidate to announce her first-quarter fundraising total after South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg said he raised over $7 million in the first quarter, according to CNN.
“A nationwide network of hundreds of thousands of grassroots supporters has stepped up to lay the foundation for a winning campaign,” Harris’ campaign manager Juan Rodriguez said in a statement on Monday cited by the Hill magazine.
“This is a campaign powered by the people, focused on making healthcare a right, putting $500 a month in the pockets of working Americans, and giving every public school teacher in America a raise. We’re excited by the support we’re already seeing.”
The campaign’s announcement came after Sunday’s Federal Election Commission quarterly fundraising deadline.
In a news release, Harris said she had received 218,000 individual contributions during the first quarter and 98 per cent of those contributions came in amounts smaller than $100.
Harris’ aides said that more than 99 per cent of her current donors can contribute again without hitting the limit.
Harris did not disclose how much she has spent during the first three months of the year, nor how much cash she has remaining in the bank for the long primary fight. (IANS)
The Wyden plan “would transform how the U.S. taxes the wealthiest people,” The Wall Street Journal’s Gabriel Rubin and Richard Rubin writes.
Under current law, investors pay taxes on the increased value of the stocks and bonds they own — known as capital gains — only when they sell them. They also pay a lower tax rate than that on most forms of income. Wyden’s plan would remove both of those advantages.
Investors would have to pay the ordinary income-tax rate on their capital gains. And they would have to do so each year, based on the assets’ value at the time. In accounting terms, this practice of updating the value of an asset is known as “mark to market.”
The “mark-to-market” idea is similar in principle to the reassessment of home values for property-tax calculations. As I’ve noted before, the property tax is an annual tax on the largest asset for most middle-class families. But the very rich don’t face an annual tax on their largest holdings.
Their largest holdings often include stocks. Which means that the lower tax rate on capital gains, combined with the deferral of taxing them, has enormous financial consequences, as Steve Wamhoff, of the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, explains on JustTaxes.org. “Wealthy households, who already own the most in assets, can defer paying tax and grow their wealth much more rapidly, while income most of us earn from work is taxed annually,” Wamhoff writes. “This is a massive tax break for the wealthy, and mark-to-market taxation would bring it to an end.”
Lily Batchelder and David Kamin, both N.Y.U. professors and former Obama administration officials, noted that the Wyden plan would also raise significant amounts of revenue for the federal government. That money could be used to reduce the deficit or pay for programs such as preschool or middle-class tax cuts.
Critics of the Wyden idea (as you can see here) claim that revaluing assets each year is too complicated to be feasible and that the plan will harm economic growth. I don’t buy either claim.
On the economic effects: It’s not as if the American economy has been performing well in recent years. As wealth inequality has risen, economic growth has repeatedly missed forecasters’ expectations.
On the complexity: All taxes have some complexity. But it’s certainly feasible for the government to become more aggressive about taxing top incomes and wealth.
I don’t know whether the Wyden plan will ultimately make more sense than Warren’s more sweeping proposal to tax large fortunes each year or the proposals from Harris and Sanders to increase the inheritance tax. But this is the right time for the debate.
The next time the country has a president who’s worried about inequality and middle-class living standards, it will be time to increase taxes on extreme wealth.
The average wealth of the poorer half of American households has dropped below zero in the years since the financial crisis, according to the World Inequality Database. What does that mean? It means that fully half of Americans hold more combined debt than assets.
The average wealth of the richest 1 percent of households, meanwhile, has more than recovered its losses from the crisis. They’re now richer than ever.
This situation isn’t healthy. And the most obvious solution is to change the tax code — specifically, to increase taxes on wealth to undo some of the radical increases in inequality over the last few decades.
Fortunately, some policymakers are starting to come forward with proposals to address the wealth imbalance. The latest is Ron Wyden, the Democratic senator from Oregon. He joins a few presidential candidates — Kamala Harris, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren — who have also proposed higher taxes on wealth.
Two Bills introduced on February 7th simultaneously in the US Senate and the House proposing to end per-country limits on employment-based green cards, a long-standing demand of advocacy groups of high-tech workers from India, has given rise to hope among hundreds of thousands green card applicants.
The Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act Bill also increases the per-country caps for family-sponsored green cards from 7 percent to 15 percent. Without adding any new green cards, S. 386 creates a “first-come, first-served” system that alleviates the backlogs and allows green cards to be awarded more efficiently, the senators said in a press statement.
Sens. Kamala Harris (D-CA) who has announced candidacy for 2020 presidential election and Mike Lee (R-UT), introduced the Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act that would also adjust per-country limits for family-based green cards.
An identical bill was tabled in the House of Representatives by Congressmaen Zoe Lofgren and Ken Buck, Chair and Ranking Member of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration and Citizenship, with co-sponsorship of a bipartisan group of 112 members of Congress.
“Ours is a nation of immigrants, and our strength has always come from our diversity and our unity,” Sen. Harris said in a statement. “We must do more to eliminate discriminatory backlogs and facilitate family unity so that high-skilled immigrants are not vulnerable to exploitation and can stay in the U.S. and continue to contribute to the economy. I’m proud to join with Sen. Lee on this bipartisan legislation to ensure that our country remains vibrant and dynamic,” she said.
News reports said the bill has broad bipartisan support and is additionally cosponsored by Sens. Roy Blunt (R-MO), Susan Collins (R-ME), Jim Moran (R-KS) and Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Michael Bennet (D-CO), among others.
The bill has also been endorsed by Immigration Voice, Compete America Coalition, the Information Technology Industry Council, Google, Microsoft, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, The Heritage Foundation, La Raza, and many others.
“There is consensus that reforms to fix the nation’s immigration laws for high-skilled workers are long overdue,” said Andy Halataei, ITI Senior Vice President of Government Affairs.
“The Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act would allow U.S. employers to attract and retain the world’s best and highly-educated employees, enabling highly-skilled workers who are committed to the United States to propel American innovation, grow the economy, and help create jobs in America. This bill will help maintain U.S. competitiveness as a nation,” it said.
President Trump has called Indian-American Senator Kamala Harris, the Democratic Senator from California, the most credible candidate for President among the slew of Democrats rearing to face off against him in 2020. Asked in a New York Times interview on Feb. 1, who he thought was the “toughest” Democratic candidate so far, the President responded, “I would say, the best opening so far would be Kamala Harris. I would say, in terms of the opening act, I would say, would be her.”
What stood out about her, he indicated, was the announcement she made in Oakland, California Jan. 27, where a estimated crowd of more than 20,000 people came to cheer on her candidacy. “A better crowd — better crowd, better enthusiasm. Some of the others were very flat,” the President said, about that “opening act.” He criticized Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who he contended, had “been hurt very badly with the Pocahontas trap.” Over the year, President Trump has referred to Sen. Warren as Pocahontas, based on her claims she had some Native American ancestry.
Meanwhile, David Brooks, the Right Leaning NY Times Columnist, has described Kamala Harris as: “The more you learn about Kamala Harris, the more formidable she appears. She is an amazing amalgam of different elements — highly educated elite meritocrat, Oakland street fighter, crusading, rough-elbow prosecutor, canny machine pol and telegenic rhetorical brawler. She is also probably the toughest and most hard-nosed progressive on the scene right now.”
“Democratic primary voters may decide that if they are going to take on Donald Trump, they’re going to want the roughest, most confrontational gladiator they can get. After they see how, well, direct she can be, they may decide that person is Kamala Harris,” Brooks opined.
In her memoir, “The Truths We Hold,” she describes her political campaigns as a series of hard-fought battles against tough foes. She ran for San Francisco district attorney against her former boss, whose nickname was Kayo (pronounced “K.O.”), for all the people he knocked out. But she beat him.
Some Republicans see Harris as the more moderate candidate in what they claim is a increasingly left-leaning Democratic Party. Harris record as a District Attorney and then Attorney General in California, has opened her criminal justice record for examination.
Harris’ website also uses similar terminology – “Tough Principled Fearless” to describe her. On her website kamalaharris.org, she dwells on her African American ancestry, noting that she was the second African American in history to be elected to the U.S. Senate and the first African Amerivan and first woman to serve as Attorney General of the state of California. Though her mother was Indian, there is no mention of the fact, that she is the first Indian-American to be a District Attorney in California, the first to be AG of that state, and later the first Indian-American ever to be elected to the Senate.
“To beat Trump, I suspect Democrats will want unity,” David Brooks wrote in his column in the NYT. “They won’t want somebody who essentially runs against the Democratic establishment (Bernie Sanders); they’ll want somebody who embodies it (Harris). They’ll want somebody who seems able to pulverize Trump in a debate (Harris).”
A suspicious package addressed to California Senator Kamala Harris was intercepted Friday morning in Sacramento, Senator Harris’s office confirmed to CBS13. The package is similar to 13 others addressed to other elected officials and political figures this week.
Sen. Kamala Harris’ office said Oct. 26 that authorities in Sacramento, California, are investigating a suspicious package mailed to her. The office of the Indian American U.S. senator says the package was similar to those that have been sent to other prominent Democrats.
The senator’s office says it was informed that the package was identified at a Sacramento mail facility. The FBI responded to the facility in a South Sacramento neighborhood that’s been blocked off by caution tape.
News of the package comes as authorities arrested a Florida man suspected of sending more than 10 mail bombs in recent days. Harris is a Democrat serving her first term in the U.S. Senate.
“Our understanding is a trained postal employee identified the package at a Sacramento mail facility and reported it to the authorities,” a statement from Sen. Harris’ office read. A heavy law enforcement presence, including FBI, US Postal Inspector, postal police, and the sheriff’s department personnel was visible at the facility throughout the morning. Firefighters from Sacramento Metro Fire Department also responded to the report. CNN first reported the incident.
FBI special agents have arrested Cesar Altieri Sayoc, 56, in connection with the packages. Federal officials say these were “improvised explosive devices” made with PVC pipe, clocks, batteries, wiring, and explosive material. None of the bombs detonated.
The Sacramento Sheriff’s office says the package addressed to Harris resembled the other suspicious packages sent this week. A postal employee at a Sacramento mail facility identified the package and reported it to authorities. No one was injured.
Justice Department officials revealed that a latent fingerprint found on one package helped them identify their suspect as Sayoc, 56, of Aventura, Florida. The criminal complaint charges Sayoc with illegally mailing explosives, illegally transporting explosives across state lines, making threats against former presidents, assaulting federal officers and threatening interstate commerce.
Court records show Sayoc, an amateur body builder with social media accounts that denigrate Democrats and praise Trump, has a history of arrests for theft, illegal steroids possession and a 2002 charge of making a bomb threat.
The development came amid a nationwide manhunt for the person responsible for at least 13 explosive devices addressed to prominent Democrats including former President Barack Obama, former Vice President Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton. The case continued widening Oct. 26 even as Sayoc was detained.
In Washington, Attorney General Jeff Sessions cautioned that Sayoc had only been charged, not convicted. But he said, “Let this be a lesson to anyone regardless of their political beliefs that we will bring the full force of law against anyone who attempts to use threats, intimidation and outright violence to further an agenda. We will find you, we will prosecute you to the fullest extent of the law.”
In Florida, law enforcement officers were seen on television examining a white van, its windows covered with an assortment of stickers, outside the Plantation auto parts store. Authorities covered the vehicle with a blue tarp and took it away on the back of a flatbed truck.
The stickers included images of Trump, American flags and what appeared to be logos of the Republican National Committee and CNN, though the writing surrounding those images was unclear.
Trump, while calling to take strict actions against political violence, complained that “this ‘bomb’ stuff” was taking attention away from the upcoming election and said critics were wrongly blaming him and his heated rhetoric.
Law enforcement officials said they had intercepted a dozen packages in states across the country. None had exploded, and it wasn’t immediately clear if they were intended to cause physical harm or simply sow fear and anxiety.
Earlier in the day, authorities said suspicious packages addressed to New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker and former National Intelligence Director James Clapper — both similar to those containing pipe bombs sent to other prominent critics of Trump— had been intercepted.
Investigators believe the mailings were staggered. The U.S. Postal Service searched their facilities 48 hours ago and the most recent packages didn’t turn up. Officials don’t think they were sitting in the system without being spotted. They were working to determine for sure. The officials spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation.
Online court records show that Sayoc in 2002 was arrested and served a year of probation for a felony charge of threatening to throw or place a bomb. No further details were available about the case.
Most of those targeted were past or present U.S. officials, but one was sent to actor Robert De Niro and billionaire George Soros. The bombs have been sent across the country – from New York, Delaware and Washington, D.C., to Florida and California, where Rep. Maxine Waters was targeted. They bore the return address of Florida Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the former chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee.
The common thread among the bomb targets was obvious: their critical words for Trump and his frequent, harsher criticism in return.
Sen. Kamala Harris, a rising star in the Democratic Party who is sometimes cited as a possible presidential contender in 2020, has a book deal.
Penguin Press announced that Harris’ “The Truths We Hold: An American Journey” will come out Jan. 8, 2019. According to Penguin, Harris will write about “the core truths” in American life and how to learn what they are.
The 53-year-old Harris was formerly California’s attorney general. She was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2016.
For politicians, books have long been a standard part of developing a national profile, from John F. Kennedy’s “Profiles in Courage” to Barack Obama’s “The Audacity of Hope.”
Scott Moyers, vice president and publisher of Penguin Press, according to the Times praised Harris’s “authentic” voice, and said her back story was especially compelling, including her “fascinating and formidable” mother.
The memoir and current-events primer, in a mixture well-known to campaign books, will include sketches of both Ms. Harris’s upbringing and her governing principles.
It’s the second book by Harris. The first, “Smart on Crime,” was published in 2009 — the year before she was elected California attorney general. Harris won her Senate seat in 2016.
Publishing books is a rite of passage for presidential prospects. Harris is the latest possible Democratic contender to publish a book since the 2016 presidential election. She joins former Vice President Joe Biden, Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and former New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu. Former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julián Castro’s book is expected this fall, and independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who published a book last year, has another one — titled “Where We Go From Here” — due after November’s midterm elections.
Penguin said that in the book Harris is “reckoning with the big challenges we face together, drawing on the hard-won wisdom and insight from her own career and the work of those who have most inspired her.”
“Through the arc of her own life, on into the great work of our day, she communicates a vision of shared struggle, shared purpose, and shared values,” Penguin said. “In a book rich in many home truths, not least is that a relatively small number of people work very hard to convince a great many of us that we have less in common than we actually do, but it falls to us to look past them and get on with the good work of living our common truth. When we do, our shared effort will continue to sustain us and this great nation, now and in the years to come.”
Indian-origin American senator Kamala Harris has not ruled out the prospects of running for the US President in 2020, according to media reports. Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., says she isn’t ruling out a 2020 run for president in her most direct comments yet about her political future.
In an interview that aired Sunday on MSNBC’s “KasieDC,” Harris said she’s focused on the 2018 midterm elections. “I’m focused on a lot of other things as a higher priority” than running for president, she said. Pressed on whether she was ruling out a 2020 bid, Harris said: “I’m not ruling it out, no.”
Harris, 53, the daughter of immigrants from Jamaica and India, is viewed as a rising star in Democratic politics. Her likely presidential ambitions are the subject of wide speculation, and she’s often included on the not-so-short lists of potential Democratic 2020 hopefuls. According to the media outlet, it is her most direct comments yet about her political future.
Harris, a former prosecutor, was California’s attorney general before she was elected to the Senate in 2016. She has started to carve out a reputation as a defender of immigrants in the Trump era, a move that could give her an edge with those voters in 2020, the outlet said. Earlier this year, she bucked her party’s leadership to vote against an immigration compromise that she said made too many compromises with Republicans, angering some of her colleagues.
Other possible Democratic presidential candidates in the Senate — including Bernie Sanders of Vermont, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Cory Booker of New Jersey — voted “yes.”
In the interview, Harris also said the United States should consider abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE.
“We’ve got to critically re-examine ICE and its role and the way that it is being administered and the work it is doing,” she said. “We probably need to think about starting from scratch.”
There are several hopefuls who want to beat Trump in the next presidential elections, but one of the leading candidates is none other than, a first-term U.S. Senator from California, considered a rising star, hoping to lead the party in the 2020 presidential race. The newly-minted California senator is avoiding any talk about her future ambitions. But her history-making Senate bid — she’s the first Indian American and first black senator from California — and the state’s size and massive Democratic dominance makes her appealing, CNN commented last month.
She is Kamala Harris who, according to her Senate bio, “was the first African-American and first woman to serve as Attorney General of California and the second African-American woman to be elected to the United States Senate in history.”
And in the wake of Hillary Clinton’s failure to become the first female president, the Huffington Post has suggested Harris could be “the next best hope for shattering that glass ceiling.” Both outlets compared her rise to that of former President Obama who also ran with just one Senate term under his belt.
Kamala Harris, the first Indian-American to be elected to the US Senate, is a potential Democratic presidential candidate for 2020 elections, Washington Post, a leading American newspaper stated last week. Harris, 51, whose mother was from Chennai and father from Jamaica, is one among the six Democratic leaders, whom The Washington Post said are the top contenders to bag the party’s nomination for the 2020 presidential elections.
Interestingly four of these are women. The other three being outgoing First Lady Michelle Obama, Senator Amy Klobuchar from Minnesota and Senator Kirsten Gillibrand from New York. Other two potential Democratic presidential candidates according to the US daily are Senator Cory Booker from New Jersey and Governor John Hickenlooper from Colorado.
“Harris will not officially become a US senator from California for more than a month, but she is already regarded as national-candidate material in four years,” Washington Post columnist Chris Cillizza had written in his article last year.
“It is not hard to see why. She is the first African American woman elected to the Senate since Carol Moseley Braun in 1992. Harris also represents the largest and most Democratic state in the country, a huge financial launchpad to a presidential bid,” he said, noting that through mid-October, she had raised more than $13 million for her Senate candidacy.
“Her law-and-order background – she was elected and reelected attorney general in California – also will appeal to many Democrats. Whether Harris wants to – or will be ready to run for national office so soon after being elected to the Senate remains to be seen,” Cillizza said.
Harris is a two-term popular Attorney General of California. She was elected to the United States Senate from California in a landslide. She was endorsed by outgoing US President Barack Obama, in her Senate race.
“No matter how many people said I couldn’t do it, I won my races for District Attorney and Attorney General,” Harris said. “I’m a fighter – I’ve fought for the people of California, especially those most in need. This campaign for Senate has ended, but the work is just beginning. And now I’m ready to take that fight to Washington.” For now, Senator-elect Kamala Harris will take the oath of office as the US Senator representing California on January 3, 2017.
There are over two years and the 2020 presidential election. But, with Donald Trump in the White House, Democratic politicians are already eagerly jockeying for position with the expectation that the party’s nominee will have a very good chance of ousting the incumbent — if his poll numbers stay anywhere as low as they are at the moment.
While she has denied interest in running in 2020, she appears to making the moves that a potential candidate would, including speaking to key groups and on high-profile panels, fundraising for fellow Democrats, and connecting with journalists.
As Democratic political adviser Bob Shrum told the news outlet, “From everything I’ve seen of her she’d be an attractive candidate, she could be a compelling candidate, and I think she’d have a lot of appeal for primary voters.” Others have agreed, with the Washington Post calling her “formidable” due to her “California fundraising and activist base coupled with her historic status in the party…”
Even if she decides to join the race in 2020, she may have some tough competition for the Democratic nomination in the form of former Vice President Joe Biden, Senators Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts. Andrew Cuomo, a two-term governor of New York with a record of liberal accomplishments and a famous last name.
However, when the Los Angeles Times‘ Patt Morrison asked her about running for the top job a few months ago, Harris deflected the question, saying, “I don’t know why my name is in that context. I’m focused on being the junior senator from California and very proud to be representing our beautiful state.”
With a minimum net worth of $27 million, freshman lawmaker Ro Khanna (D-Fremont) is the fourth-richest Californian in Congress. That’s according to a new list compiled by Roll Call, which analyzed federal financial disclosure forms to determine that the total net worth of the Golden State’s 55-member delegation came to $439 million in 2016—a 14 percent drop from the year before—while Congress as a whole got richer.
In all, the Capitol Hill newspaper found in partnership with the Los Angeles Times, there are 20 millionaires in Congress from California with fortunes from real estate holdings, investment portfolios and their spouses. The state is home to both the richest and the poorest members of Congress, both of them SoCal Republicans: Darrell Issa tops the list with a net worth of $283.3 million while dairy farmer David Valadao comes dead last from a negative net worth of $17 million in business credit lines.
Khanna, an economist and intellectual property lawyer, reported that his wife Ritu Khanna—the multimillionaire daughter of Monte Ahuja, an executive of investment firm Mura Holdings and car parts company Transtar—holds 99 percent of his assets.
The first-term congressman, who proposed a $1 trillion tax credit and other policies to benefit the working class, spent none of his family’s money on his last race, according to Roll Call. His wealth includes more than 500 different investments and a few trusts. He also reported more than $500,000 in tech stocks and $50,000 in student loans.
Elsewhere in Silicon Valley and the Peninsula, Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Menlo Park) lands 12th on the list for California, citing a $2 million net worth in 2016, while Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-San Jose) a district away comes in 17th place with $1.6 million.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-San Francisco) is the second-richest member of the state delegation and the wealthiest woman in Congress with a reported worth of $61.5 million. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, another San Francisco Democrat, comes No. 5 on the ranking with stocks from Apple and Facebook and a net worth of $16 million, even after she and her husband reported losing $11 million in assets since the year prior.
Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Oakland), is No. 29 with a reported net worth of $391,100. Fellow Oakland Democrat Barbara Lee comes in at No. 45 in the state due to a $225,000 negative net worth from two mortgages.
Roll Call and the LA Times noted that the accuracy of the financial disclosure forms is a little iffy. Some are penned by hand and hard to decipher, and mistakes earn only warning letters from an ethics panel.
With his base in wealthy Fairfield County in the state of Connecticut, Rep. Jim Himes is a top campaign fundraiser, but the Democrat has a new Republican challenger who says he plans to rival the incumbent in raising political money. With his announcement, Harry Arora, 48, an Indian American investment firm founder is looking to make waves in public service, running for Congress in Connecticut’s 4th Congressional District.
Arora of Greenwich, Conn., filed his paperwork to run for the seat in late December, seeking the Republican Party nomination. With no other opponent filing for the race, he will bypass the Aug. 14 primary and head directly to the Nov. 6 general against Democratic incumbent Rep. Jim Himes.
The candidate, who fought and survived cancer, has also helped with other campaigns in the past. It was his battle with cancer that led him to shift his focus from business to public service, Arora said. With his background in investing, and as an analyst and investment manager, he believes he is well suited to utilize his skill set in public office.
“Connecticut has never recovered fully from the great recession. Businesses and talent are fleeing the state because of the hostile policy environment – we are in a vicious cycle and our elected officials are oblivious to it,” he said.
“I am running for the U.S. Congress to propose and advocate policies which will help my state get back on track. I want to bring back honest discussion in our national debate,” the candidate added.
A release from Arora’s campaign said, “Like Himes, Arora is also from the investment industry and has the ability to raise money to match Himes.”
“He is the first investment manager in Fairfield County to run for Congress, which gives him access to capable donors,” the release said. “It is the combination of intellect, passion and genuine desire to serve, which people see and feel when they meet me. That is what is going to win this race for me,” he asserted to India-West.
Arora, if elected, would likely join a growing group of Indian American members of Congress — Ro Khanna and Ami Bera of California, Pramila Jayapal of Washington and Raja Krishnamoorthi of Illinois — but would be the first hailing from the East Coast.
“A large number of Indian Americans are first generation and have become American citizens in recent years. They have been busy in their personal fights – to raise their families, to do well at their jobs, build businesses and careers. Indian Americans are highly educated, hardworking and entrepreneurial,” he said.
“I am glad to see that so many other Indians are running for office. It is not easy. Perhaps the time has come. Indian Americans are well represented in banking, legal, technology and so many other professions. It is now time they step up to the challenge of public office.”
The candidate added that if 2 percent of the country is of Indian ethnicity, the government should have nine Indian origin representatives and two senators. By those standards, the community is halfway there, with four representatives in the House and one — Kamala Harris of California — in the Senate.
Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., was appointed to the US Senate Judiciary Committee on January 9th. Harris, who already serves on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, the Select Committee on Intelligence and the Committee on the Budget, was joined by Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., on the committee, according to a news release. The Judiciary Committee oversees the U.S. Department of Justice, including the FBI, as well as the Department of Homeland Security.
“I look forward to the chance to continue to provide a voice for our most vulnerable communities, work on issues I’ve handled since my earliest days in the Alameda County District Attorney’s office, and defend California in the face of this administration’s repeated attacks on our values,” Harris said in a statement.
In taking the new assignment, Harris has left the Committee on Environment and Public Works. “While I will no longer serve on the Environment and Public Works Committee, I will continue to be a champion for California, which has an outsized stake in all issues relating to the protection of our environment,” the first-term senator said. “My commitment to fight for everyone’s right to drink clean water and breathe clean air is unwavering.”
As the former District Attorney of San Francisco and Attorney General of California, Harris worked extensively on issues that fall directly under the Judiciary Committee’s jurisdiction including criminal justice reform, federal criminal law, immigration law, human rights, consumer protection and internet privacy, according to her website.
Both Harris and Booker have been persistent critics of Attorney General Jeff Sessions in Congress. Harris gained notoriety and national attention for her prosecutorial style of grilling Sessions during intelligence hearings in June.
“I can’t help but think that it’s time we replace division with a new way of thinking,” Harris said on Facebook. “I’ve come up with a little equation which is this: diversity, because we are a diverse country, plus commonality, seeing what we all have in common, equals unity. Let’s agree that our diversity is our strength, and our strength is out (sic) unity,” Harris said. Unity in diversity would build “the muscle that will power our movement,” Harris concluded.
Nikki Haley, the United States Ambassador to the United Nations, U.S. Senator Kamala Harris of California, and Hasan Minhaj, who made national headlines with his scathing stand-up delivery against President Donald Trump, are among those made it to the list of leading thinkers from around the world, according to the Foreign Policy magazine’s annual reckoning.
Kamala Harris topped the list and was recognized “For giving the Democratic Party hope in the Trump era”; Haley was included “For trying to preserve America’s traditional vision of international affairs”; Minhaj was named to the 2017 list for defining the narrative of a “New Brown America.”
This year the magazine named it’s list the “Global re-Thinkers of the World” contending that 2017 was the year when leaders had to re-calibrate their ideas and strategies after “reactionary populism swept the world” in 2016.
The list includes “legislators, technocrats, comedians, advocates, entrepreneurs, filmmakers, presidents, provocateurs, political prisoners, researchers, strategists, and visionaries — who together found amazing ways not just to rethink our strange new world but also to reshape it,” the magazine said.
“Daily Show” correspondent Hasan Minhaj gave the keynote roast at the White House Correspondents Dinner 2017 in Washington, D.C., on Saturday. MUST CREDIT: Photo by The Washington Post by Marvin Joseph
What skyrocketed Harris to the national scene was a June hearing where she flayed former Sen. Jeff Sessions, in prosecutorial style, drawing flak from Republican Senators. “Suddenly, California’s 53-year-old junior senator has become an early favorite to challenge Trump in the 2020 presidential election,” the magazine noted.
As for Minhaj, the magazine notes it was no coincidence he was chosen for the White House Correspondents Dinner. “After all, just when the U.S. president was desperately trying to ban more Muslims from entering the United States, Minhaj — the son of Muslim immigrants from Aligarh, India — was making a name for himself as the right comedian for the wrong time,” the magazine said.
“In a cabinet stacked with decorated generals and multimillionaire moguls, the daughter of Indian immigrants whose only major political experience was serving as governor of South Carolina seemed an unlikely pick,” said the magazine. But, even before she became the U.N. Ambassador, Haley “appeared to have little in common, foreign policy-wise, with her would-be boss, President Donald Trump,” according to the magazine.
“After she assumed her new role, their differences have been thrown into stark relief,” it adds. Haley’s push to keep sanctions against Russia, championing human rights, and advocating renewed commitment to NATO, over the last 10 months, “smacks more of traditional Republican (and, arguably, traditional U.S.) policies more closely in line with Ronald Reagan than with the current president.”
U.S. Senators Marco Rubio (R-FL), Kamala Harris (D-CA), Susan Collins (R-ME), and Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) on April 6th introduced a bipartisan resolution condemning hate crimes, discrimination, and other forms of animus targeting individuals and communities across the United States. The Senate passed the resolution unanimously last night.
The resolution cites violent incidents targeting Jewish, Muslim, African-American, Hindu, and Sikh communities. It also mentions the vandalism of Jewish cemeteries, bomb threats against Jewish community centers, and burning of mosques and Islamic centers.
The resolution calls on federal law enforcement, working with state and local officials, to investigate all credible reports of these occurrences in the United States, hold perpetrators accountable, and bring them to justice.
“In America, no one should live in fear due to their religion, race, or ethnicity,” said Harris. “I am proud to lead this bipartisan group of senators with one voice to condemn the rise of hate crimes that target minority communities, as well as any form of religious or ethnic bias, racism, discrimination, or other forms of hate. Many of our constituents have been directly impacted by the unconscionable rise of hate crimes and hate-motivated violence in the United States, and law enforcement must do more to ensure minority communities are secure. Today, we stand united in our condemnation and rejection of hate-motivated crimes as an attack on the fabric of American society and the ideals of pluralism and respect.”
“Embracing diversity of thought and people from different backgrounds has made America a more perfect union,” said Rubio. “Unfortunately, there are still some individuals who seek to tear our social fabric apart with violent acts and threats fueled by hatred. With many in our country and around the world feeling discouraged by this divisiveness and animosity, it’s important to make it clear that we stand united in condemning the targeting of anyone simply because they are different.”
Meanwhile, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions in an April 5 memo announced a new subcommittee within a task force in the Department of Justice that will specifically combat hate crimes. Sessions, in the memo, provided an update to 94 U.S. Attorney’s Offices and Department of Justice component heads on the Department’s Task Force on Crime Reduction and Public Safety, which he created Feb. 27.
The Hate Crimes Subcommittee will specifically address hate crimes in the nation. Other subcommittees announced included developing violent crime reduction strategies, supporting prevention and re-entry efforts, updating charging and sentencing policies, reviewing asset forfeiture guidance, reducing illegal immigration and human trafficking, and evaluating marijuana enforcement policy.
The announcement of the subcommittee targeting hate crimes came just days after more than a dozen U.S. senators called for President Donald Trump’s administration to launch a new task force to prevent hate crimes.
This years’s contenders for Time’s ‘Most Influential People’ list include Senator Kamala Harris, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The global list includes leading artists, politicians, lawmakers, scientists and tech and business leaders, and will be announced in mid-April. Although the magazine’s editors will determine this year’s final list, readers are also asked to vote from the probable contenders.
Modi was named among the probable contenders in 2016 and was among the most influential people in the world in 2015. As part of the 2015 list, former President Barack Obama wrote a profile for him. In 2016, a number of Indian American and Indian origin leaders were named to the list, including then Reserve Bank of India Governor Raghuram Rajan, tennis star Sania Mirza, actress Priyanka Chopra, Google CEO Sundar Pichai and Flipkart founders Binny Bansal and Sachin Bansal.
This year’s probable contenders include President Donald Trump, his daughter Ivanka Trump and her husband and senior White House adviser Jared Kushner, actor Riz Ahmed, Russian President Vladimir Putin, U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May, Chinese leader Xi Jinping, Pope Francis and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, among others.
The coming of age of the Indian American community is evident all over with the tiny less than 1% of the US population leading in several areas of American life. With the record number of Indian Americans holding high jobs in the Obama administration, many more are even trying to take an active role in the politics of the country by trying to get elected to public offices across the nation. They are the most affluent and best educated of any immigrant group in the country, according to Pew. They include doctors, engineers, tech entrepreneurs and educators, and form a rich donor base.
Now, many more Indian Americans are entering politics and seeking elected offices, cementing their place at the table of decision makers. The elections held on November 8th this year has sent One US Senator and four Indian Americans to the US Congress.
The Indian American community will honor the successful US Indian American lawmakers at a gala on January 3 at the Marriott Marquis Hotel in Washington, DC, according to organizers. The annual Indiaspora Gala, which has in the past celebrated the presidential inauguration, has been changed this year to feature an “Indiaspora 2017 Leadership Conference and Gala.”
The Gala, which coincides with the swearing-in of the 115th Congress, will honor the “Fab Five,” five Indian Americans recently elected or re-elected to the U.S. Congress — Sen.-elect Kamala Harris, Rep. Ami Bera, and Reps.-elect Pramila Jayapal, Ro Khanna and Raja Krishnamoorthi — as well as two Indian Americans named to senior positions in the incoming presidential administration: Gov. Nikki Haley and Seema Verma. The Gala is meant to showcase and celebrate the Indian American community’s progress with the theme, “From Success to Significance.”
Nearly a thousand leading Indian-Americans from all walks of life, and eminent people from India, are expected to attend the Conference and Gala. Among them will be about 200 senior political officials (Senators, Congressmen/women, Governors, Ambassadors and Mayors) from various parts of the country.
Michelin Star chef-inspired Indian cuisine, music and dancing will be part of the Gala festivities, according to a press release. Indiaspora will also invite members of the new presidential administration and members of Congress from both parties. In addition, the 2017 Leadership Conference & Gala will showcase elements of Indian culture.
Indiaspora Board member Shekar Narasimhan said, “The Indian American community has come of age as it is an active participant in American civic life, and our ‘Leadership Conference and Gala’ will personify our move from success to significance.”
The daytime session of the event is planned as an intellectually stimulating conference including high-level keynote speakers and panelists discussing events of importance to the Indian American community, such as the future of U.S.-India relations, Indian American success stories that break stereotypes, the increasing popularity of elements of Indian culture in the United States, and the political maturation of the Indian American community.
A record five Indian Americans were sworn into office in Washington, D.C., om January 3rd. making it a truly a memorable year for people of Indian origin in the United States. The election of these six is a historic symbol of the rightly recognizable Indian American community’s growing political influence in the mainstream American politics.
Kamala Harris, D-Calif, a former state attorney general who had won the U.S. Senate election on November 8 in a landslide became the first Indian American U.S. senator. Harris, 52, joined by friends and family in the Capitol Building, was sworn in by Vice President Joe Biden with Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., looking on. “I am humbled and honored to serve you and the people of California. Let’s get to work,” Harris tweeted following her swearing-in ceremony. The new senator, one of seven new senators sworn in, replaces Barbara Boxer, who retired after 24 years in office.
Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., representing the state’s 7th Congressional District; Raja Krishnamoorthi, D-Ill., representing the 8th Congressional District; Ro Khanna, D-Calif., representing the 17th Congressional District; and Ami Bera, D-Calif., representing the 7th Congressional District, were the Congressmen of Indian origin who were sworn into office last week.
Krishnamoorthi won in the November election in Illinois’ 8th Congressional District, which includes some Chicago suburbs. The Indian American entrepreneur — president of Sivananthan Labs & Episolar Inc. — served as a policy adviser to President Barack Obama in 1999 when the community organizer ran for Congress. The relationship continued as Obama ran for the U.S. Senate in 2002. Krishnamoorthi was endorsed by the president leading up to the election.
“I will continue to focus on the middle class and our commitment to ensure that hard work is rewarded. I am ready to join and lead the efforts to make sure that working families who play by the rules are not left off the agenda in Washington,” Krishnamoorthi said in a statement. “I am humbled by the trust the people of our district have placed in me to fight for them in Congress.”
Jayapal, the first Indian American woman in the U.S. House of Representatives, the first person of color in the state’s Democratic delegation and the first woman to represent the seventh Congressional District, said this position is all about the community, not just her.
“Today is not about me. It’s about we,” said Jayapal in a statement. “It’s about the movement of hundreds of thousands of people in Washington’s 7th Congressional District, a diverse coalition of people from all walks of life, who want to ensure we continue to provide opportunity for all. Jayapal, who takes over for Jim McDermott, is one of only 23 members of Congress born in another country.
Ami Bera has been voted to Congress in California’s 7th Congressional District since 2013. “Today I’m honored to be sworn in to the 115th Congress — grateful to serve and ready for the work ahead,” Bera, the only 3rd term Indian American ever to be in the US Congress, tweeted moments after being sworn in.
Ro Khanna won in California’s 17th Congressional District after a very bitter fight against longtime Rep. Mike Honda. The Indian American lawyer won by more than 20 points in the 2016 election. “Even as the nation continues to heal from the political divisiveness of the past year, I am proud to begin 2017 by representing Silicon Valley in Congress,” Khanna said in a statement. “We need bold ideas and sound policies that provide opportunities to those our changing economy and technological revolution has left behind, and invest in policies that support working families to better prepare all children for the future.
“As a son of immigrants and grandson to a freedom fighter during India’s independence movement,” Khanna added, “the protection of civil rights no matter a person’s gender, race, or sexual orientation, will always be side-by-side with my commitment of economic fairness for all.”
Leaders of the Hindu American Foundation (HAF) are deeply concerned about recent incidents of bias-motivated violence and harassment, as well as violence at protests, following the Presidential election.
Over the past several days, the Southern Poverty Law Center noted a “big uptick in incidents of vandalism, threats, intimidation spurred by the rhetoric surrounding Mr. Trump’s election.”
Nazi symbols have been spray-painted in dorms, on walls, and the ground in attempts to intimidate non-whites. There have been numerous incidents of verbal abuse of non-whites across the country, as well as incidents of Muslim women having their hijab pulled, while being verbally harassed. And though the vast majority of anti-Trump protests have been peaceful, there have been incidents of destruction of property, as well as assaults on Trump supporters and anti-Trump demonstrators alike. A student at Woodside High School in California was also violently attacked by another student for a pro-Trump social media post.
Here at HAF, US-born friends of a Board member were recently told, “Go back to your country.” And a member of HAF’s National Leadership Council was spat at and chased down a street by a person making obscene gestures.
“While feelings surrounding the election may understandably be running high, incidents of hate and violence are unacceptable in a pluralistic, democratic nation operating under the rule of law,” said Suhag Shukla, Esq., the Foundation’s Executive Director.
HAF leaders are encouraged by the words of President-elect Trump in urging his supporters to not harass minorities, but also recognize the unfortunate reality that many such incidents have already occurred and are likely to continue to occur in the days and weeks ahead.
If you or someone you know has been harassed, assaulted or threatened with harm, HAF urges that you not stay silent, and report such acts and threats of violence to law enforcement immediately.
We also ask that that you help us in tracking incidents of identity-based or bias-motivated intimidation, threats, harassment, and violence being experienced in our communities by filling out this form. The more data we have about such incidents, the better we will be able to work with the appropriate authorities, agencies, civil rights advocates, and other stakeholders to identify areas of particular concern and ensure the safety and security of the community. To this end, please share this form widely with your networks.
Also, if you or someone you know believe like you have been or are being discriminated against on religious grounds, HAF’s Know Your Rights provides information about fundamental rights in simple, straightforward terms.
Furthermore, as we have seen numerous incidents of the hateful use of the swastika, presented in an anti-Semitic and Nazi context, HAF encourages everyone to re-acquaint themselves with the multi-thousand year history of this auspicious symbol, sacred to Hindus, Buddhists, Jains, Sikhs, and many other communities around the world. We encourage you to share the hopeful and uplifting meaning of the swastika with your neighbors, community, and elected officials, so that we may slowly replace the hateful usage with the hopeful.
The Hindu American Foundation (HAF) congratulates Donald Trump on being elected the 45th President of the United States. We look forward to working with the Trump-Pence administration to address those issues, both within the United States and abroad, that are of deep concern to many in the Hindu American community.
We are encouraged by President-elect Trump’s call to “bind the wounds of division” and “come together as one united people,” which recognizes the need for unity amongst the deep political, social, and religious diversity of the United States.
This commitment, we hope, will extend to issues HAF has long advocated for: ensuring hate crimes are monitored and combatted vigilantly, alongside outreach to affected communities to ensure their safety and security; comprehensive immigration reform, with specific attention to religious worker visas, equitable H-1B policy, and accommodations for Hindu refugees fleeing persecution; and continued engagement on issues of law enforcement and cultural competency, so that all Americans can enjoy equal protection under the law.
In carrying out our nation’s foreign policy, of utmost concern to HAF continues to be: the gross human rights violationsborne by Hindus and other religious minorities around the world, especially in countries such as Pakistan and Bangladesh, where radical Islam is fomenting terror and violence; Pakistan’s proxy war in Indian Kashmir that has led to the ethnic cleansing of over 300,000 Kashmiri Hindu Pandits and ongoing violence against Hindu minorities in Kashmir; and bilateral ties of the United States with nations that sponsor terrorism.
On all these issues we look forward to engaging the incoming Trump-Pence administration to ensure a safe and prosperous future for all Americans.
We also take this opportunity to celebrate the achievements of the Hindu American community. This election has been nothing less than historic. For the first time there are four Hindu members of Congress: incumbent Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) is joined by first time winners Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), Ro Khanna (D-CA), and Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL) in the House of Representatives. We also offer our heartiest congratulations to Indian American incumbent Ami Bera (D-CA), and the first ever Indian American to be elected to the U.S. Senate, Kamala Harris (D-CA).
Hindu Americans also made significant strides in state-level races. Just a few of these include incumbents Niraj Antani (R-OH) and Prasad Srinivasan (R-CT), along with Jay Chaudhuri (D-NC) and Ash Kalra (D-CA), who were elected as first time winners and the first Hindus to serve in their respective state legislatures. Hindu Americans were also elected to many city-level races around the country, too numerous to mention.
The Hindu American community has arrived politically, and it is now upon us to ensure that our elected representatives at all levels of government hear our concerns and needs, and act upon them for the well-being of all.
A record three women of Indian origin are in race for the first time in the US, seeking to enter the US Senate/Congress. Pramila Jayapal is running for House of Representatives from the state of Washington. Kamala Harris is running to enter the Senate from California. While Harris and Jayapal are Democrats, Lathika Mary Thomas is running for the House on a Republican ticket from Florida. This is the first time a woman of Indian origin has come thus far to fight a seat for US Congress from the state of Florida.
Congressman Dalip Singh Saund, a Democrat from California was the first ever Indian American elected in 1956 and the first Asian-American to serve on Capitol Hill. Since then, there have been only two others who made to the US Congress.
Ami Bera from California is the only Indian-American Congressman in the current Congress. He is among the three Indian-Americans elected to the Congress ever. While Ami Bera serves in the Congress, Boby Jindal, who was the second Indian American to be elected to the US Congress, later on became the Governor of the state of Louisiana and had an unsuccessful run to be the Republican nominee for US President.
In 2010, Nikki Haley (R-SC) made history by being elected the first female Indian-American governor in the United States. She is regarded as a rising star by those inside and outside the Republican Party
In the past two decades, several Indian-Americans have been making political inroads, from city councils to state capitols. “We certainly are looking at how to get Indian-Americans more engaged in politics,” said Bera, a Sacramento County physician and currently the sole Indian-American in Congress. “They should think about running for office.”
Harris, the twice-elected state attorney general is widely considered the front-runner in the California Senate race. Harris, whose mother is Indian-American and whose father is Jamaican-American, would be the first Asian or black American elected to the Senate from California.
She’s running in a presidential election year, which means higher voter turnout overall and more Democrats coming to the polls. Her candidacy showcases the diversity within the Asian-American community and has generated a lot of excitement.
If elected, Harris would be the second black woman in Senate after Carul Mosley Braun in 1992 and the first Indian-American in the Senate. Harris, who has been endorsed by US President Barack Obama is currently the California Attorney-General.
Jayapal, who earned an endorsement from Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, would be the first Indian-American woman in Congress, if she wins the elections in November. According to latest polls, both Jayapal and Harris are expected to win their respective elections. Jayapal says she is running for Congress because “because our system is rigged for corporations and the wealthy, but we can fight back. The time has come to tackle this inequality: we need to raise the minimum wage, expand Social Security and Medicare and ensure debt-free college for young people across America.”
Like Jayapal, Latika Mary Thomas if elected to the US House of Representatives seat from Florida would be the first Indian-American woman in the Congress.
Lathika Mary Thomas is running for US Congress from the Second Congressional District in Florida. If elected, Mary would make history as the first Indian-Malayalee American woman elected to Congress. Mary was born in Charleston, South Carolina to physician parents who arrived in America in 1972. Mary’s dad Dr. Tom Thomas is from Alleppey and mom Dr. Annie Thomas is from Palai, both in Kerala state, India.
Mary is a graduate of the Florida State University College of Law. She also holds a Masters of Law from the University of Miami and a Bachelors degree from the University of South Florida. Mary was born in Charleston, South Carolina, to immigrant parents who arrived in America from India in 1972 with their educations and the hope of living the American dream. The Thomas family eventually settled in Pinellas County, where they started a successful small business.
She introduced herself as the daughter of legal immigrants from India, a wife, mom and Christian. A native of Charleston, South Carolina, who relocated with her family to Florida as a child, is hoping to become the first Indian-American elected to Congress from the state, something she said “would truly be an historic event.”
In addition to these three women, there are several other Indian American women candidates who are in race to win elections in various parts of the country, and create history of sorts. It’s also very much on the cards that more Indian American women will win elections this year than their male counterparts.
There are several incumbent Indian American politicians at present: Aruna Miller (D-MD) has served in the Maryland House of Delegates since 2011. Kshama Sawant was elected to the Seattle City Council in 2013. In Iowa, Swati Dandekar (D-IA) was a member of the state legislature for several years before being appointed to the Iowa Utilities Board by Governor Terry Branstad. Anu Natarajan served on the Fremont City Council for more than a decade before becoming the city’s vice-mayor. Reshma Saujani served as New York City’s Deputy Public Advocate before founding the popular technology non-profit Girls Who Code. In Manhatttan’s 65th Assembly District, Jenifer Rajkumar is running for New York State Assembly.
Asian-Americans, which include Indian-Americans, are the fastest growing demographic group in the U.S., according to Pew Research Center.Nearly 600,000 of the country’s 3.1 million Indian-Americans live in California, and the state boasts a number of notable elected officials. Besides Bera, who was born in Los Angeles to immigrant parents, they include Californian Attorney General Kamala Harris, who could become the first Indian-American elected to the U.S. Senate.
Though Americans of Indian descent account for only 0.1 percent of the U.S. population, they are the most affluent and best educated of any immigrant group in the country, according to Pew. They lean strongly toward Democrats, yet two Republican governors, Bobby Jindal of Louisiana and Nikki Haley of South Carolina, are of Indian descent.
A Pew Research Center report last year found that 65 percent of Indian-Americans identified as Democrats or leaned toward the party, the highest level of affiliation among Asian-American groups. Asian-Americans as a whole overwhelmingly voted for President Barack Obama in 2012, even outpacing Latinos.
President Obama and Vice President Joe Biden on Tuesday, July 19, announced they are backing California state Attorney General Kamala Harris, a longtime political ally of the president, in the historic Democrat-on-Democrat U.S. Senate race.
The president praised Harris as a “lifelong courtroom prosecutor” who fought international gangs, oil companies and the big banks responsible for the mortgage crisis. “Kamala’s experience has taught her that if you’re going to give everybody a fair shot, you’ve got to take on the special interests that too often stand in the way of progress,” Obama said.
“Kamala Harris fights for us. That’s why I’m so proud to endorse her for United States senator,” the president said in a statement released by the Harris campaign and Democratic National Committee. “And if you send her to the Senate, she’ll be a fearless fighter for the people of California — all the people of California — every single day.”
President Obama is popular in the Democratic-leaning state, and his involvement could provide a boost for Harris in a race that represents a historic first in California — two minority women, both Democrats, in a runoff to replace retiring Sen. Barbara Boxer.
Biden said the Senate “needs people like her — leaders who will always fight to make a difference and who never forget where they come from.” The dual endorsements represent a political coup for the Indian American candidate, who faces fellow Democrat Loretta Sanchez, a 10-term congresswoman, in November.
The president’s nod caps a string of major endorsements for Harris, the candidate of choice among the Democratic Party’s power barons and some of the left’s most influential interest groups. It also sends a clear signal to Democratic donors, many of whom have stayed on the sidelines this election.
Sanchez supporters expressed dismay that the administration would attempt to tip the scales in this intra-party contest. “In this historic Democrat versus Democrat race, we have two strong, qualified women of color and it is unfortunate that instead of letting the voters decide, the Democratic party along with President Obama are picking sides,” said Martín Diego Garcia, Director of Campaign for Latino Victory Fund, a political action committee that supports Latino candidates.
Lori Cox Han, a political science professor at Chapman University in Orange, said the endorsements by Obama and Biden just solidified the message that Harris was the Democratic Party’s chosen one from the get-go. “It just kind of says that it’s really not going to be that competitive going forward,” Cox Han said.
The matchup marks the first time since voters started electing senators a century ago that Republicans will be absent from California’s general election ballot for the Senate. Under California election rules, only two candidates — the top vote-getters — advance to the November election, regardless of party affiliation.
If elected this fall, Harris, the daughter of immigrants from India and Jamaica, would set historical marks. She would become the first Indian American woman to be elected to the Senate.
Sacramento, CA: Rep. Ami Bera, D-Sacramento, who is seeking reelection to US Congress and California Attorney General Kamala Harris, who is running for a U.S. Senate seat, have received endorsements from the California Democratic Party, during the state convention on February 27th.
Bera, who has been in an ongoing battle with Sikh Americans and labor groups in his district – CD-7 – handily won his endorsement, gaining nearly 90 percent of the vote. Fifty people voted for the sole Indian American in Congress, while six voted against him. Bera – who is seeking his third term in office – is running unopposed in the primary election June 7. He will face Sacramento County Sheriff Scott Jones – a Republican – in the general election Nov. 8.
“I’m proud that local Sacramento County Democrats voted to award me the state party’s endorsement,” Bera said after the vote. “I came to Washington to fix Congress, and to help the working parents, business owners, seniors, and many others in my district get ahead and, today, these fine people recognized this. They know that I went to DC to fix a broken Congress, something I will never stop working to do,” said the physician, who formerly served as the chief medical officer for Sacramento County.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, told party delegates before the endorsement vote was taken that Bera’s position on TPA was different from her position, but that his vote on the issue should not be the sole basis for his re-election. “He is a valued member of the Congress. He has a great base of support at the grassroots level and I think he will win,” said Pelosi.
Kamala Harris also handily won her endorsement from the California Democratic Party, winning more than 78 percent of the vote. Harris is battling Rep. Loretta Sanchez, D-Orange County, and Republican contender Duf Sundheim, an attorney who formerly served as the state’s Republican Party chairman. California’s open primary allows the top two vote getters from either party to go on to the general election.
In her speech before the endorsement vote, Harris – who served as San Francisco’s District Attorney before ascending to the post of Attorney General in 2012 – chronicled her youth growing up in the San Francisco Bay Area, as the daughter of two civil rights activists. She spoke about the hateful rhetoric spewing out of the Republican Party and vowed to protect the fundamental rights of all U.S. residents. “For far too many, liberty and justice for all is a promise we have failed to keep,” said Harris.
After the vote, Harris’s campaign sent out a statement late Feb. 27. “I’m incredibly honored to have the endorsement of the California Democratic Party in the U.S. Senate race, and I’m so proud of the support our campaign has received from every corner of our state,” she said. “We know there is more that unites us than divides us, and I’m grateful to the Californians who joined together to send that message this weekend,” said Harris.
Kamala Harris, California Attorney General, wants to be a U.S. Senator, and she has already been campaigning for a seat for more than a year. Wednesday, February 24th, she formally and legally declared herself a candidate, filling out the official paperwork at the registrar’s office in Norwalk. The Democratic attorney general is running for the Senate seat being vacated by Sen. Barbara Boxer, who retires from her post at the end of her term in 2017.
“We got in early, we’ve been running hard, and this makes it official. So I’m very excited,” Harris said. Since announcing, Harris has been the frontrunner, leading in the polls. If Harris wins the seat, she would be the first Indian American to ever serve in the Senate and the second-ever African-American woman. She says her strategy is to truly connect with voters. “Sitting and talking with them and listening, most importantly, and then hopefully, this work will result in a successful bid for the United States Senate,” Harris said.
Harris says there are some key issues she’s focusing on, including education, the economy, the environment and equality. “That’s everything from what we need to do around continuing to fight for the rights for our LGBT brothers and sisters, to what we need to do around immigration reform, to what we need to do around protecting a woman’s right to choose what to do with her own body,” Harris said.
Luis Vizcaino, a campaign spokesman for Harris’ Democratic rival Rep. Loretta Sanchez, maintained that Sanchez is the most qualified for the seat. He released the following statement: “California needs an experienced and proven leader to tackle the full range of economic, educational and foreign relation challenges we face today. Our next U.S. Senator must have an extensive legislative and national security background and share the life experiences of working families – and that’s Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez, who last year was named one of the 25 most influential women in Congress by CQ Roll Call because she knows how to work with members from both sides of the aisle. She is the most qualified candidate for the job of U.S. Senator.”
Republican candidate lawyer Duf Sundheim says he disagrees with Harris’ stances but welcomes her into the race. His campaign released the following statement: “I welcome Ms. Harris into the race. Elections are about choices. The contrast between our candidacy and Ms. Harris’ could not be clearer.”
When U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, her name surfaced as a potential nominee, but Harris made it clear she did not want to be considered for that position. “I’m not putting my name in for consideration. I do not wish to be considered. I am running for the United States Senate,” Harris told reporters at a recent campaign stop.
Harris is viewed as a rising Democratic star. She campaigned for Obama in both his presidential bids, and he returned the favor by holding a fundraiser for Harris during her successful 2010 campaign to become California’s first female and first minority attorney general. California’s June 7 primary will send the top two vote-getters, regardless of party, to the general election in November.
Born of an Indian mother — Shyamala Gopalan, who emigrated from Chennai in the ‘60s — and Jamaican American father, Stanford University economics professor Donald Harris, she is the first ever Asian American and African American to be elected to this top position in California.
So far, only three Indian Americans have been elected to the U.S. House of Representatives — Dalip Singh Saund, Bobby Jindal and Ami Bera, who was re-elected for his second term last November.
The less than four million Indian Americans appear to be gaining prominence and have come to be recognized as a force to reckon with in this land of opportunities that they have come to call as their adopted homeland. They are the most educated population in the United States, with more than 80 percent holding college or advanced degrees, as per a report by Pew Research Center. They have the highest income levels, earning $65,000 per year with a median household income of $88,000, far higher than the U.S. household average of 49,000, according to the survey.
Although disparities persist with nearly nine percent of Indian Americans live in poverty, they have made a mark in almost every field in the United States through their hard work, dedication and brilliance. Notching successes in fields as diverse as poetry and politics, some three million- strong Indian American community packed more power and influence far beyond their numbers in the year gone by.
A whopping 84 per cent Indian-Americans voted for President Barack Obama in the last general election. And they are recognized by the Democratic Party with important jobs in Washington, DC as never been before. “It is very exciting to serve in an Administration that has so many great Indian-Americans serving,” said Raj Shah, Administrator of USIAD, the highest ranking Indian-American in the Obama Administration.
A record 30 Indian Americans fought to win electoral battle with Republican Nikki Haley and Democrat Kamala Harris handily winning back their jobs as South Carolina governor and California’s attorney general respectively. Amiresh ‘Ami’ Bera, the lone Indian American in the US House of Representatives, repeated history by winning a tight California House race. Eight Indian Americans scored victories in the states with 23-year- old law student Niraj Antani, a Republican, creating history by winning a House seat in Ohio to become one of America’s youngest lawmakers.
Dr. Vivek Verma won an uphill battle against the powerful Gun Lobby and won the majority support at the US Senate last week. President Barack Obama appointed Richard Rahul Verma as the first envoy from the NRI community to India. Nisha Desai Biswal is heading the State Department’s South Asia bureau. Puneet Talwar took over as assistant secretary for political-military affairs to serve as a bridge between the State and Defense departments, while Arun Madhavan Kumar became assistant secretary of commerce and director general of the US and Foreign Commercial Service.
Satya Nadella is the CEO in place of Steve Ballmer, making him perhaps the most powerful Indian-born tech executive in the world. Stanford University Professor Thomas Kailath received the Medal of Science from Obama for his “transformative contribution to science and technology”, while Arun Majumdar was chosen to serve as one of four US Science Envoys.
Subra Suresh was inducted into the Institute of Medicine (IOM), making him the only university president to be elected to all three national academies, while Sujit Choudhry, a noted expert in comparative constitutional law, became the first Indian American dean of the University of California-Berkeley, School of Law, a top US law school. Sriram Hathwar and Ansun Sujoe won the Scripps National Spelling Bee contest after 52 years and for just the fourth time in the contest’s history. Indira Nooyi, another person of Indian origin has been leading as the CEO of Pepsi, one of the largest corporations.
New York’s US attorney Preet Bharara continues to make history with going after small and big law breakers in the nation. Among many judges of Indian origin, Sri Srinivasan stole the headlines with his unanimous support from the US Senate to the US Federal Court in DC.
The India-US relations are poised for a takeoff after an eventful year and a historic election that transformed India’s new leader Narendra Modi’s visit to India and the return visit by President Obama to preside over the Republic Day celebrations of India in New Delhi later this month. The Indian American community continues to play an important role in shaping the relationship between India, the largest democracy and the US, the greatest democracy in the world.
Indian-Americans are tremendously important and we hope they would be increasingly visible not only in the government, but also in all parts of American life,” said Maya Kassandra Soetoro-Ng, maternal half-sister of Obama, adding that the President was very proud of the community. “It is certainly a reflection of how important India is and how important Indian-Americans are to the fabric of the nation. I would just like to celebrate all of the contribution artistic, political and so much more of the community,” said Maya.
“It is time we come to recognize fully the contribution of the Indian-American community here,” said Maya, reflecting the views of Obama who has the distinction of appointing the largest number of Indian-Americans in any presidential administration ever. Congressman Joe Crowley, Co-Chair of the Congressional India Caucus, agrees, “I think it is wonderful for the Indian-American community. It is coming of age, politically for them.”
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Ever since Gov. Bobby Jindal the first ever major Indian American presidential candidate who had sought to occupy the White House, there have been many others who have followed in his footsteps. Indian Americans have expressed keen interest in carving out their political space at the national table for decades, and now, the fruits of their labor are paying off, with more successes now than ever before.
Forbes also included four Indian women in their list of the 100 most powerful women in the world. The country’s finance minister, Nirmala Sitharaman, came in at number 32 in the politics and policy category. HCL Technologies chairperson and industrialist Roshni Nadar Malhotra ranked number 60 in the technology category. Soma Mondal, CEO of the Steel Authority of India, was number 70 in the business category. Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, an entrepreneur, was number 76 in the business category.
The institute partners with Indian State and Central governments to identify use cases, collect data, conduct pilots and deploy solutions. Some of the strategic programs of the institute include enabling frontline healthcare workers to feel digitally confident to engage with AI-based technology solutions, irrespective of their education, skills, and environment and developing multiple interventions across the TB care cascade and helping India’s National TB Elimination Programme (NTEP) become AI-ready.
Kamala Harris topped the list and was recognized “For giving the Democratic Party hope in the Trump era”; Haley was included “For trying to preserve America’s traditional vision of international affairs”; Minhaj was named to the 2017 list for defining the narrative of a “New Brown America.”
