“I know he’ll fight hard in Congress to create more good jobs, empower more Americans,” says the president while endorsing his former aide.
AB Wire
President Barack Obama has endorsed Indian American Raja Krishnamoorthi, the Democratic candidate for Illinois’ open 8th congressional district.
“As the son of immigrants who worked their way into the middle-class, Raja understands both the challenges facing America’s working families and the opportunities their work makes possible,” said Obama while endorsing the Democrat, according to a Facebook post by the Krishnamoorthi campaign. “I know he’ll fight hard in Congress to create more good jobs, empower more Americans to start businesses, and help working families afford to put their children through college.”
Krishnamoorthi, who was born in Delhi, beat two other Democrats in the March 15 primary. His Republican opponent in the November 8 general election is Peter DiCianni. The incumbent, Rep. Tammy Duckworth, is running for the U.S. Senate.
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Krishnamoorthi, who grew up in Peoria, Illinois, served as policy director in the Obama’s 2004 Senate campaign.
“I am honored and humbled to have the support of President Obama in my race for Congress,” Krishnamoorthi said in the Facebook post. “It only seems like yesterday that the two of us ate dinner in my childhood home in Peoria before the beginning of his historic rise to the U.S. Senate and the White House. A few gray hairs later, that dinner table conversation continues as we are focused on standing up for the middle class and working to make sure that we come together as a country instead of casting stones and insults at our fellow Americans.”
Krishnamoorthi had earlier received endorsements from former Obama aide David Axelrod and the senior U.S. senator from Illinois Dick Durbin.
A small business owner, with a law degree from Harvard Law School, the Indian American is running as a candidate for the middle class. “I am … someone who believes very much in entrepreneurship and helping small businesses to grow because I believe that they are at the heart of economy,” he told The American Bazaar in an interview last month. “My mission is to grow and strengthen the middle class and keep people in the middle class because I believe that the middle class in America is slowly eroding [and] shrinking.”