New York, Aug 5 (IANS) Indian American member of the House of Representatives, Shri Thanedar, has lost the Democratic Party primary in an upsurge of support for progressive candidates in Michigan state where Israel was a factor in the background.
Thanedar, who was first elected in 2022 and won again in 2024, lost to Democratic Socialist Donavan McKinney by a narrow 3.8 per cent margin, according to the results announced on Wednesday in the intra-party elections held on Tuesday.
The seat in a majority African American constituency that covers parts of Detroit and its suburbs is considered safe for the Democratic Party in the November mid-term elections.
In the trend of progressives upstaging more moderate Democrats, Abdul El-Sayed won the state-wide primary for the Senate seat, and if elected would be the first Muslim in the upper Chamber of Congress.
By a slender margin of less than one per cent, he defeated Haley Stevens, a moderate member of the House who sought the party’s Senate nomination to succeed Gary Peters, who is retiring.
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s backing for Thanedar and Stevens — as also many other candidates — were turned into election issues by their opponents.
There are six Indian Americans in the House, and two of them, Thanedar and Raja Krishnamoorthi, who ran unsuccessfully for the Senate nominaton, will not be there next year.
But they could be joined by Amish Shah, who won the Democratic primary last month if he can turn the tide in the Arizona constituency held by a Republican.
Thanedar’s victory in the last two elections was remarkable because he ran in a constituency that is nearly 75 per cent African American.
Besides his story of rags to riches, he was helped by several African Americans running against him in the primaries splitting the community’s votes.
This time McKinney, an African American, was the only opponent in the primary.
He was backed by several socialist and anti-Israel campaigners like Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Rashida Tlaib and US Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed.
El-Sayed and many progressives made the Palestine issue a central in their campaigns.
Thanedar had been a member of the Democratic Socialists, but quit in 2023 after the Hamas terrorist attack on Israel.
However, he shared common stands with McKinney, like opposition to the Iran War and demand for extending government health insurance for all.
Thanedar ranked among the staunchest opponents of President Donald Trump, trying to introduce measures for impeaching him.
His full name is Shrinivas Prasad Thanedar and he was born in Chikodi in Karnataka, coming to the US for a PhD at the University of Akron.
While working for a pharmaceutical company, he took out a relatively small loan to buy the failing enterprise.
After turning it around, he went on to buy several other companies and became a multi-millionaire who financed his campaigns.
–IANS
int/al/khz
