Washington: California senator Kamala Harris and Hawaii congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard were among two dozen aspirants for Democratic ticket to run against Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election. Both Harris and Gabbard have made early moves, reaching out to party workers and voters in Iowa whose caucuses kick off the 2020 presidential cycle on February 3, 2020. Although that’s more than a year away, such is the tortuous and extended nature of the US elections that presidential hopefuls begin connecting with party leaders, donors, and activists months in advance as they lay groundwork for the campaign.
Kamala Harris, 49, spent several days in Iowa during the mid-term poll canvassing for Democratic candidates, and reminiscing about her own work there during the historic 2008 Obama campaign when she said that in addition to door-knocking, she became the Obama campaign’s de facto pizza-delivery person because “no job was too small.” Elsewhere this past week, Tulsi Gabbard, 37, fresh from a fourth-term victory in the congressional elections, was introduced at a Los Angeles conference as the next president.
“Amid the clamor of Trump headlines and focus on higher profile candidates, Gabbard has been quietly making the traditional moves of a presidential candidate. She recently visited Iowa, where locals urged her to run for president. She keynoted a progressive gathering in New Hampshire in September. And she’s writing a book due out this spring titled, ‘Is Today the Day?: Not Another Political Memoir’,” the journal noted.
California-born Kamala Harris, whose mother Shyamala Gopalan was a cancer researcher from Tamil Nadu (her father Donald Harris was an economics professor from Jamaica), is a first-term Senator but is considered a consummate Democratic insider given her stints as a district attorney in San Francisco and attorney general of California.
Tulsi Gabbard is a Caucasian born in American Samoa to a Catholic father (Hawaii state senator Mike Gabbard) and a mother (Carol Porter Gabbard) who embraced Hinduism, as did the daughter when she was young. A self-described Hindu, Gabbard, if she wins the nomination, would be the first Hindu candidate ever from a major political party to run for president.
Indian American representatives win re-election
The four Indian American members of Congress – Pramila Jayapal, Ro Khanna, Ami Bera and Raja Krishnamoorthi – affectionately known as the “Samosa Caucus,” have all been re-elected in their respective races in the Nov. 6 midterm election. Jayapal, Khanna and Krishnamoorthi all won in landslides, while Bera, the longtime US representative in California’s 7th Congressional District, won in a more closely-contested race.
