Indian American closes gap in poll battle for Silicon Valley

WASHINGTON: As US mid-term elections approach, a new poll shows an Indian American is closer than ever to represent Silicon Valley in the House of Representatives, unseating the incumbent.

The challenger, Ro Khanna, had trailed the incumbent, Mike Honda, both Democrats, miserably for weeks — by a massive 20 points when anyone last took a measure.

They are now in “dead heat”, according to a poll released by Khanna’s campaign on Monday — both of them tied at 38%, with 24% of respondents still undecided. But the Honda campaign hit back swiftly with its own poll findings showing the congressman holding on to his lead, although marginally shaved down to 15 points.

Khanna and Honda are locked in a battle for California’s Congressional District 17, which is home to Silicon Valley’s tech majors Apple, Yahoo, Facebook, Intel and ebay. Honda has represented the constituency seven times and, being of Japanese descent, he has also been somewhat of an elder statesman for Asian Americans.

Many Indian Americans are actually rooting for Khanna to lose, for taking on Honda. Khanna dismisses them as DC insiders, the kind of people, and culture, he is running against.

Much like President Barack Obama when he first ran in 2008.

There are other similarities.

Many Team Obama operatives are now with Khanna. The memo on Khanna catching up with Honda was issued by Jeremy Bird, top field organizer for Obama in 2008 and 2012.

Bird said the new poll showed the election, if held today, could end in a “photo finish”, which was a “tremendous turnaround” from the primaries four months ago.

But can Khanna pull it off? “Ro’s a friend, but he has a tough row to hoe,” said Toby Chaudhuri, a former White House advisor and strategist for presidents Obama and Bill Clinton.

Poll positions tighten in the final stretch, Chaudhuri said but he believes Khanna may have stretched himself, and his resources, too thin for him to last the distance.