Republican State Sen. Niraj Antani Loses His U.S. Congress Bid From Ohio’s 2nd District
- In Chicago, Democrat Qasim Rashid was defeated by incumbent Bill Foster in the 11th Congressional District, and physician Dave Nayak loses his bid for a state Senate seat from District 20.
Ohio State Sen. Niraj Antani has lost his bid for the U.S. House of Representatives from the second Congressional District in today’s GOP primary. The young Indian American Republican ran in a crowded field of 11 candidates to replace retiring Rep. Brad Wenstrup. Antani was in 10th place with 1,497 or 1.8 percent of the votes, according to The New York Times. He plans to continue serving in his Senate district until his term expires on Dec. 21.
Antani, who was born and raised right here in southern Ohio, was first elected to represent his Dayton-area Senate district in 2020 after serving six years in the Ohio House. He is currently Ohio’s youngest senator and the first Indian American to serve in the Senate.
In a Nov. 14 press release announcing his run, Antani promised to be “a conservative warrior in Congress and fight against Joe Biden’s disastrous policies.” The second district’s “partisan voter index leans significantly Republican,” he wrote on X. “Over the next days, weeks, and months, I look forward to working hard to earn the support of the voters and to win this campaign,” he added.
In Illinois, human rights lawyer Qasim Rashid lost to incumbent Bill Foster in the Democratic primary for the state’s 11th Congressional District. The Pakistani American of Naperville received 7,183 or 22.3 percent of the votes, according to The New York Times. Before this run, Rashid previously made two failed attempts in Virginia, where he lived for about a decade until 2022. “He came at the Foster from the left, attacking the incumbent’s stances or votes on health care, the war in Gaza, campaign financing, and other national and international issues,” the Daily Herald reported.
In the Democratic primary for the Illinois state Senate, Indian American physician Dave Nayak is poised to lose his bid for a seat from District 20. With 80 percent of the votes counted, Nayak is trailing in third place with 3,173 or 15.6 percent of the votes. Incumbent State Sen. Natalie Toro is in second place, while Graciela Guzman, an organizer at Chicago Teachers Union is leading the Democrats with a huge lead. The Chicago Sun described the 20th District state Senate seat as the “most hotly contested” state Senate seat. The Daily Line noted in December, that Nayak’s “funding efforts lifted contribution limits in the race, setting the stage for an even more expensive race.” Nayak, a Peoria native runs a free asthma and allergy clinic in the city and also runs a downstate farm that “donates thousands of pounds of sweet corn to food banks across Illinois and parts of Iowa, Missouri, and Indiana.