Raises an astounding million dollars against incumbent Honda.
By American Bazaar Staff
WASHINGTON, DC: Ro Khanna, an intellectual property attorney based in Silicon Valley, is turning out to the best bet yet for the Indian American community to get a place in the US House of Representatives from the South Bay House CD-17 area in the next elections.
Khanna, 36, announced he has raised a whopping million dollars in the second quarter, and he has a total of $1.7 million going forward into a Democratic primary with veteran politician, seventh-term incumbent Rep. Mike Honda, 72, who raised only around one-third of Khanna in the second quarter, $345,000, and has $375,000 in total. The race marks the first fight between two Asian American heritage candidates in an Asian majority district.
“As someone who grew up in a strong middle-class family and who is still working to pay off my student loans, I am honored to have the support of so many hard-working individuals here in California. What’s clear from the early support I’ve received is that Bay Area voters are frustrated with Congress – and they agree we need to bring Silicon Valley thinking to Washington,” said Khanna in a statement after his astounding campaign this past quarter.
According to Politico, Khanna, who’s taught at Stanford University too, has used his ties to the tech community to fill his campaign coffers. He’s hired a batch of veteran campaign consultants, some of whom have worked for President Barack Obama. His advisers include Jeremy Bird, Obama’s national field director in 2012, and David Binder, one of the president’s pollsters.
Honda, though, has won the president’s endorsement and that of nearly every incumbent in the California congressional delegation, including House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, said Politico.
According to the San Francisco Chronicle, Khanna’s donors include top tech honchos like Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, Yahoo CEO Marissa Meyer, Netscape co-founder Mark Andreessen and Napster co-founder Sean Parker.
Team Khanna notes their man raised his big numbers this quarter with fundraising exclusively in Northern California — and 91 percent of his checks came from locals while none came from PACS, lobbyists or special interest, said the Chronicle.
The San Jose Mercury News said Honda is likely to have at least one key campaign advantage over Khanna: boots on the ground to knock on doors and work the phones. With strong labor union and Democratic Party support, Honda starts with a bigger volunteer base to draw upon.
According to his website (www.rokhanna.com), Khanna was inspired to be a community leader early on by his grandfather, who told him stories about participating in Gandhi’s independence movement in India and spending several years in jail for promoting human rights.
Khanna’s parents immigrated to the United States, and he was born in Philadelphia in 1976. His father studied engineering at the University of Michigan.
A longtime Fremont resident, Ro was drawn to Silicon Valley after graduating from law school. Inheriting a passion for teaching from his mother, who worked as a public school substitute teacher, Ro is now a visiting Lecturer in the Department of Economics at Stanford University and an Adjunct Professor at Santa Clara Law School. He also sits on the Board of Directors of Planned Parenthood Mar Monte. In recognition to his experience working with trade and manufacturing issues, Governor Brown appointed Ro to the Workforce Development Board for the State of California, where he serves as chair for the Advanced Manufacturing Committee, says his website.
President Obama appointed Khanna to serve as Deputy Assistant Secretary at the U.S. Department of Commerce in 2009. He has written a book on manufacturing, Entrepreneurial Nation: Why Manufacturing is Still Key to America’s Future, which has won widespread praise for its strategies for keeping the best companies, jobs, and opportunities in America.
He is currently Of Counsel at the Silicon Valley law firm Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, where he specializes in representing high technology companies. Ro graduated Phi Beta Kappa with a B.A. in economics from the University of Chicago, and is a graduate of Yale Law School.