US Poll: Suhas Subramanyam on way to Congress, increasing ‘samosa caucus’ to 6

Suhas Subramanyam is on his way to Congress, where he will join the ‘Samosa Caucus,’ the group of Indian American lawmakers, boosting its strength to six.

In his Virginia constituency, he had 52.1 percent of the votes to 47.9 percent for his Republican rival, with 97 percent of the votes counted.

He was declared the winner by The Associated Press, which calls elections based on the counting data before the official announcement.

Subramanyam currently serves in the Virginia General Assembly. He has previously worked as a technology policy adviser in President Barack Obama’s White House and has also started a business.

His mother is from Bengaluru, and his father is from Chennai.

Subramanyam earned his undergraduate degree from Tulane University and worked on Capitol Hill as a policy aide, where he focused on expanding healthcare access to millions of Americans and building a bipartisan coalition in support of immigration reform, according to his campaign biography.

After earning a law degree from Northwestern University, he joined the White House staff.

He contested the election on his record of helping small businesses, working families, and promoting laws to bring down medicine prices.

Suhas and his wife Miranda Peña Subramanyam have two daughters.

All five Indian Americans in the House of Representatives – Ro Khanna, Ami Bera, Pramila Jayapal, Raja Krishnamoorthi, and Shri Thanedar – are expected to be re-elected.

Amish Shah, another Democrat running for the House from Arizona, had a slender lead of 1.8 percent with 54 percent of the votes at 11:30 p.m. in New York (10 a.m. in India).