Washington: Indian-American Krystle Kaul, the first-ever Kashmiri woman to run for the US Congress, has $567,000 in campaign funds, according to the latest figures.
A former Director at the Department of Defense and foreign policy and national security expert, Kaul is running from the 10th Congressional District of Virginia, currently represented by her Democratic colleague Jennifer Wexton, who is not re-running.
Kaul is running against Dan Helmer who has $538,000 in cash, less than her.
This Congressional District in Virginia represents Loudon County among others, which over the past decade has emerged as the hub of Indian-Americans in the Greater Washington DC area.
The primary in Virginia is scheduled for June 18, during which Kaul is confident of earning the party’s nomination for the November 5th general elections.
“I am really excited to announce that the FEC (Federal Election Commission) reports just came out and I have the most cash on hand of all candidates in the race. I’m leading the pack. I have $567,000. They said I couldn’t do it. They said I couldn’t surpass 500K, which was the goal, and I did it. I’m really excited and I really appreciate all of the support I’ve received,” she told PTI in a recent interview.
“Locally, nationally, Indian-Americans have come out. Lots of different groups have come and supported Asian Americans, the Jewish-American community, defence community. Women have come out and I’m really proud to say that if elected, I would be the second Indian-American woman into Congress.
“We definitely need representation. Today, we have five Indian-American members of Congress, but only one is a woman, and we definitely need to have more women that are in, and I think that it’s important to have that gender equation to look at as well,” Kaul said in response to a question.
Kaul said she is running on the issue of education, affordable health care, and public safety. The 10th Congressional District of Virginia from where she is running has 44 per cent minorities.
“It is 16 per cent Asian, and we have a high population of Indian-Americans close to almost 10 per cent. I have an overwhelming level of support from minorities in the district: from the Asian community, from the Indian American community, from the Italian community, from the Thai community, and Korean.
“So I’ve been able to speak, I spoke at the Thai Temple at the Korean Association event. I’ve spoken at a number of Indian American events, small business events, defence contractor events, and so it’s really a wide issue,” she said.
District 10 includes Ashburn, Chantilly, Leesburg, Dulles, Manassas, Warrington, and a part of Fairfax.
“It is quite a broad district. It’s about 820,000 constituents, and it’s primarily made up of folks who are government contractors, defence contractors, and small business owners like myself. I’m also a teacher. I teach at MIT remotely,” she said.
Kaul said she is not a career politician. “I am someone coming in that really can relate to the average voter and not just from a female status, not just from a minority status, but also being a small business owner, coming from a defence background, being a government contractor myself, being a senior defence official.”
Kaul said there are a lot of reasons why people really appreciate and respect her candidacy and have been overwhelmingly supportive “which has been really heartwarming”.
A strong proponent of forging stronger US-India ties, she said, “I actually do believe that US-India relation is the most critical relationship of this century and want to see this relationship strengthen.”
India-US relationship has been improving post-civil nuclear deal, she said.
“I think we have a lot more room for improvement in terms of our defence relationship and intelligent sharing. That is something that I think we’ll see in the next 10 to 20 years,” she said.
With over $567,000 cash on hand, Kaul said she is running a very strong campaign.
PTI