Indian-American Candidates to Watch on the November 3 Ballot
When voters go to the polls on Tuesday, November 3, 2026, they will find Indian-American candidates standing for offices at almost every level of American government, from the United States House of Representatives to a governor’s mansion, a state attorney general’s office, a big-city mayor’s office and state legislatures. A tally compiled as of October 31, three days before Election Day, put the number of Indian-American candidates on the general-election ballot at 15, comprising nine Democrats, five Republicans and one nonpartisan candidate. That spread is itself part of the story. For years, Indian-American representation in Washington was associated almost entirely with one party, but the 2026 ballot shows a community fielding serious candidates on both sides, and in two high-profile House races, Indian-American candidates are running directly against each other.
The headline number should not be read as a prediction. Being on the ballot is not the same as winning, and several of these contests are rated by forecasters as safe for one party, several as competitive, and at least one as a genuine toss-up. What the list does show is breadth: incumbents defending seats they have held for years, challengers trying to break into Congress from swing districts, a former presidential candidate seeking a governorship, and local and state candidates chasing historic firsts in places where no Indian-American has held the office before. Taken together, the races offer a snapshot of how far a community that was once barely present in elected office has moved into the centre of American politics, and of how much still depends on a handful of close results.
It is also worth keeping the scale in proportion. Indian-Americans are a small share of the national population, but they are among the fastest-growing and most politically engaged parts of the electorate, with survey researchers estimating millions of eligible Asian American and Pacific Islander voters nationally this year. Candidates in this cycle are campaigning on the same issues that dominate the wider midterm debate, including the cost of living, health care, immigration, education, public safety and the economy. Their backgrounds, in medicine, law, business, technology and local government, shape how they talk about those issues, but none of the campaigns reviewed for this article is running on identity alone. Each is fighting a local race with local stakes, and each will be judged by voters on that record.
Two Head-to-Head Indian-American Contests in California and Washington
The most unusual feature of the 2026 ballot is that two House seats will be decided between two Indian-American candidates, one Democrat and one Republican in each case. In California’s 17th Congressional District, which covers much of Silicon Valley, Democratic incumbent Ro Khanna is seeking another term against Republican Ritesh Tandon. Khanna, who has represented the district since 2017, is one of the most prominent Indian-American voices in Congress, known for his work on technology policy, manufacturing and the India relationship. Tandon, an engineer and businessman running as a Republican, has presented himself as an alternative for voters who want a different direction on the economy and federal spending. Forecasters rate the seat as solidly Democratic, and Khanna finished far ahead of Tandon in California’s June top-two primary, but the pairing itself guarantees that the district’s next representative will be Indian-American whichever way the vote goes.
The second head-to-head race is in Washington’s 7th Congressional District, centred on Seattle, where Democratic incumbent Pramila Jayapal is seeking re-election against Republican Nirav Sheth. Jayapal, who was born in Chennai and moved to the United States as a teenager, has served in the House since 2017 and is a leading figure in the Congressional Progressive Caucus, with a long record on immigration, health care and workers’ rights. Sheth, running as a Republican, is challenging her from the other side of the political spectrum. As in California, the forecasters rate this seat as safely Democratic, and Jayapal won her state’s primary by a wide margin, but the contest again ensures Indian-American representation from the district regardless of the outcome. For voters in both districts, the choice is therefore not about whether an Indian-American will represent them, but about which vision of government will.
These two races also illustrate a wider point about the community’s politics. Indian-American voters have historically leaned Democratic by a large margin, according to survey research, but Indian-American candidates are increasingly visible in both parties, and Republican candidates such as Tandon and Sheth are testing whether that voter base can be persuaded on issues such as taxes, regulation and public safety. Their campaigns have not changed the forecast ratings in these two strongly Democratic districts, and prediction markets cited in recent reporting put the Republican chances in each seat in the low single digits. Even so, the existence of competitive two-party Indian-American contests, rather than one-party coronations, marks a change in how the community participates in American politics.
The Four Returning Incumbents and the Samosa Caucus Arithmetic
Beyond the two head-to-head races, four Indian-American House incumbents are seeking re-election: Khanna and Jayapal, plus Ami Bera in California’s 3rd District and Suhas Subramanyam in Virginia’s 10th District. Bera, a physician and the longest-serving Indian-American in the current House, has represented his California district through several close cycles and is again defending a seat that forecasters consider Democratic-leaning. Subramanyam, a freshman in the current House, is seeking a second term in a Virginia district that covers fast-growing suburbs outside Washington. Both are Democrats, and both are rated as favoured to win, though neither campaign is treating the result as settled before votes are counted.
Those four incumbents are the surviving core of the informal group known as the Samosa Caucus, the nickname coined years ago for the Indian-American members of the House. The outgoing House has six such members, all Democrats: Bera, Khanna, Jayapal, Subramanyam, Raja Krishnamoorthi of Illinois and Shri Thanedar of Michigan. Because Krishnamoorthi and Thanedar are no longer on the November ballot, a story explained below, the caucus is guaranteed to shrink unless at least one of the two Democratic challengers in Arizona and Florida wins. If both challengers win, the group stays at six. If one wins, it falls to five. If neither wins, it falls to four, even if all four incumbents hold their seats. That simple arithmetic is why two challenger races hundreds of miles from Washington carry outsized symbolic weight.
The caucus label should not be mistaken for a voting bloc. Its members span the Democratic Party’s ideological range, from progressives such as Jayapal to centrists such as Bera, and they disagree with each other on major questions, as any group of legislators does. What they share is a background that gives them a distinctive perspective on immigration, on the United States-India relationship, on science and technology policy, and on the experience of first- and second-generation immigrant families. Their collective size matters less for any single vote than for committee assignments, for who gets heard in party debates, and for whether young Indian-Americans see a plausible path into public service.
Arizona and Florida: The Two Seats That Decide the Count
In Arizona’s 1st Congressional District, Democrat Amish Shah, an emergency medicine physician and former state lawmaker, is challenging Republican Jay Feely for an open seat that has drawn heavy spending from both sides. Shah would become the first Indian-American to represent Arizona in Congress if he wins, and forecasters have moved the race in his favour in recent weeks, with Inside Elections shifting it from toss-up to tilt-Democratic in mid-October and other raters placing it as lean-Democratic or toss-up. Supporters point to his medical background and state legislative record as strengths in a district where health care costs are a central concern. Critics, including outside groups that have spent millions against him, have attacked his record and positions, and Shah’s campaign has had to answer those attacks while making its own case. The race remains close enough that neither side can claim it before the count.
In Florida’s 22nd Congressional District, Democrat Pia Dandiya faces Republican Casey Askar for an open seat in a district that includes parts of Palm Beach County. This is the closest of the Indian-American House races on paper. The Cook Political Report and Sabato’s Crystal Ball have rated it a toss-up, while Inside Elections has leaned it toward the Republican, and competing forecast models have given each candidate a narrow edge at different points. Early voting in Palm Beach County opened in mid-October and ran through November 1, so a large share of the district’s votes were already cast before Election Day itself. Dandiya’s campaign has emphasised health care, housing costs and local services, while Askar has campaigned on the economy and public safety. Whichever candidate wins, the result will be read nationally as a signal about the direction of a swing district in a state both parties watch closely.
These two races matter beyond the caucus arithmetic because they are genuine swing-seat contests in a midterm where control of the House is at stake. Every seat counts toward the majority, and a win by Shah or Dandiya would help Democrats in their effort to retake the chamber, while wins by Feely or Askar would help Republicans hold it. That national context also explains the spending: when a seat can tip the balance of power, national parties and outside groups pour resources into it, and local voters hear far more advertising than they would in a safe district. The candidates themselves, however, have both tried to keep the conversation grounded in district concerns, knowing that swing voters tend to punish campaigns that sound as if they are speaking only to a national audience.
Ohio, New York and Los Angeles: The Big-Stage Races
The highest-profile Indian-American candidacy this year is in Ohio, where Republican Vivek Ramaswamy, the biotech entrepreneur who ran for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024, is seeking the governorship against Democrat Amy Acton, a physician and former state health director. Ramaswamy, who has the backing of President Donald Trump, has campaigned on eliminating the state income tax, cutting property taxes and raising academic standards, and he has pledged to visit all 88 Ohio counties. Acton has campaigned on health care, education and economic opportunity, and she has declined to debate Ramaswamy, a decision his campaign has criticised and hers has defended as a choice about how to reach voters. Polls in the final weeks pointed in different directions: one industry-sponsored survey in late October put Ramaswamy narrowly ahead, while another poll around the same time put Acton ahead, a split that underlines why polls must be treated as snapshots, not results. If Ramaswamy wins, he would become Ohio’s first Indian-American governor.
In New York, Republican Saritha Komatireddy is challenging Democratic Attorney General Letitia James. Komatireddy, born in Brooklyn to parents who emigrated from India in the 1980s, is a former federal terrorism prosecutor and former clerk to Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, and she is reported to be the first South Asian major-party nominee for statewide office in New York. She has President Trump’s endorsement. James, the incumbent, has been a prominent and controversial figure nationally, and the race has drawn attention well beyond New York. Polling has generally shown James ahead, with a Siena survey in September putting her at 52 per cent to Komatireddy’s 39 per cent, though a campaign-commissioned survey reported later showed a closer margin. Those differences reflect different pollsters, samples and sponsors, and they are a reminder to read the source of any number before treating it as a trend.
In Los Angeles, the mayoral race is nonpartisan, which is why the overall ballot tally counts one nonpartisan Indian-American candidate. City Council member Nithya Raman is challenging incumbent Mayor Karen Bass. Raman would become the city’s first Indian-American mayor if she wins. In the June primary, Bass led with about 34 per cent to Raman’s 29 per cent, but a later Manhattan Institute poll of likely voters put Raman ahead, 38 per cent to 32 per cent, within a margin of error of 4.6 points. That single poll does not settle the race, and both campaigns have argued that the final result will turn on turnout and on late-deciding voters. The contest has focused on homelessness, housing, public safety and the basic functioning of city services, issues on which the two candidates offer sharply different approaches and records.
Texas: Two Statehouse Bids With Historic Firsts at Stake
Texas contributes two more Indian-American candidates to the ballot, both Democrats seeking seats in the state House. In District 47, Pooja Sethi, an immigration lawyer and chair of the Travis County Democratic Party who previously served as chief of staff to a state representative, is running for an open seat against Republican Jennifer Mushtaler. A victory for Sethi would make her the first Indian-American and the first Hindu elected to the Texas Legislature, a milestone that has drawn attention from supporters across the state. In District 66, Sandeep Srivastava, a Plano-based small-business owner with a background in technology and real estate, is challenging Republican incumbent Matt Shaheen, who chairs the House Elections Committee and won about 61 per cent of the vote in 2024. Srivastava previously lost a congressional race in 2024 by a wide margin, and forecasters consider his current race an uphill contest, but his campaign has argued that local issues and turnout in a midterm year can narrow gaps that look large on paper.
The Texas races show a different side of Indian-American politics from the national headlines: the slow building of representation in state legislatures, where decisions on schools, taxes, health care and voting rules are made. Statehouse seats rarely attract national television coverage, but they shape daily life more directly than most federal races, and they are often the training ground for future members of Congress and statewide officials. For the Indian-American community in Texas, one of the largest in the country, winning a first seat in the legislature would be a symbolic breakthrough and a practical one, giving the community a voice in Austin debates where it has previously had none.
Who Is Not on the Ballot, and Why That Matters
Two prominent names that voters might expect to see are absent from the November ballot because they lost their primaries earlier in the year. Raja Krishnamoorthi, who represented Illinois’s 8th Congressional District, gave up his House seat to run for the United States Senate, but lost the Democratic primary on March 17 to Illinois Lieutenant Governor Juliana Stratton, who won about 40 per cent of the vote to his roughly 33 per cent. Shri Thanedar, who represented Michigan’s 13th Congressional District, lost his Democratic primary on August 4 to state Representative Donavan McKinney by about 52 per cent to 48 per cent. Neither man will appear on the November ballot for the offices they sought, and neither will return to the House in January unless a different path opens, which none of the reporting reviewed for this article suggests.
Their absences are a reminder that primaries, not just general elections, decide representation. Both men were incumbents or well-known figures, and both lost to challengers within their own party, in contests shaped by local politics, ideology and organisation rather than by national tides alone. For supporters, the lesson is that holding a seat requires winning twice, first inside the party and then in November. For the caucus arithmetic, the consequence is concrete: two seats that were held by Indian-Americans are now held, in the case of the November ballot, by non-Indian-American nominees, and only victories by Shah or Dandiya elsewhere can restore the previous total.
Polls Are Snapshots, Not Results
Every number cited in this article comes with a caveat that readers should keep in mind on election night. Polls measure a sample of voters at a moment in time, and different pollsters, using different methods and samples, can produce different results for the same race in the same week, as the Ohio governor’s race has shown. A lead within the margin of error is, statistically, a tie. A campaign-commissioned poll may use different assumptions from an independent survey. Prediction markets and forecast models add another layer: they express probabilities, not certainties, and a candidate given a 77 per cent chance of winning still loses roughly one time in four in that model’s world. None of this makes polling useless, but it does mean that no race in this article should be called before votes are counted, and that early leads on election night can narrow or reverse as mail and provisional ballots are added.
The same caution applies to the broader question of what the results will mean. If Shah and Dandiya both win, commentators will call it a breakthrough for Indian-American representation. If both lose, they will call it a setback. The truth will be more mixed: four incumbents are likely to return, a governor’s race and a big-city mayoral race could still produce historic firsts, and state-level breakthroughs in Texas could matter for years even if they attract less attention than a House seat. Representation is built over cycles, not in a single night, and the 2026 ballot, with 15 Indian-American candidates across parties and levels of government, already shows a community that is no longer waiting for permission to run. The voters will decide, race by race, how far that ambition goes this time, and the counting, in California and elsewhere, may take days to confirm the closest of those verdicts. Readers following the cost-of-living debate that has shaped this campaign can also read USN’s earlier look at how election policies can change household profit and loss.
Sources
USN reviewed reporting from multiple outlets for this story. Read more from NDTV, The Economic Times and Firstpost.