1 month ago
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SAN FRANCISCO: For Indian American
Harini Krishnan
, a prominent community organiser of the Democratic Party in the Bay Area, California, and an important member of Team Kamala Harris; the last few days have been exciting and hectic. “We started mobilising support for this election cycle in April 2024 with
South Asians
for Biden. After President Joe Biden dropped out of the race, and since we officially pivoted to South Asians for Harris, the campaign, which had been struggling, has been greatly energised.
In the past 10 days, thousands of volunteers have signed up,” Krishnan, who is serving as South Asians for Harris co-national director for the 2024 Presidential cycle and holds other important positions in the Democratic Party including 2024-2028 Democratic National Committee member-elect, told the Times of India. She was also a founder of South Asians for America (SAFA), an organisation dedicated to the education, advocacy, engagement, and mobilisation of the South Asian community in the United States at the local, state, and federal levels, to increase civic engagement, political participation, and networking.
A longtime supporter and ally of the US Vice President, Krishnan served as lead volunteer organiser for the first Presidential campaign of Harris in California in 2019; and was elected as a Biden delegate to the 2020 Democratic National Convention (DNC), the event where party delegates, activists and leaders come together to formally nominate the Presidential candidate. “I became a political organiser in 2018 and started my journey with Vice President Harris’s first Presidential campaign in 2019. As a resident of California, I have always been her supporter since she was my Senator, Attorney General and District Attorney,” Krishnan said. Then a Senator from California, Harris later officially withdrew her Presidential candidacy. Krishnan was an important member of the Biden and Harris team in the 2020 US Presidential election, as national grassroots organising chair for South Asians for Biden (SAB), a volunteer organisation mobilising the South Asian community across America, to help elect President Biden and Vice President Harris. Krishnan, who immigrated to the US with her parents as a teenager, grew up in northern California. She holds a bachelors’ degree in political science from University of California, Irvine and a masters’ degree in international public administration from the University of Southern California.
Comparing Harris’s last Presidential campaign with this one; Krishnan feels that this time things are very different. “The Vice President has emerged a very strong Presidential candidate. Last time, she was one of many contenders; but this time as VP she has gained a lot of experience and travelled around the globe. She stands for reproductive freedom of women, social justice, diversity, small businesses and the US economy. She has been a phenomenal partner to President Biden,” Krishnan said, adding that Harris’s strength in being bi-racial translates into her ability to speak to different communities.
The South Asian and Indian American communities have pivoted to the Harris campaign and support for her is gaining a huge momentum, Krishnan said and with the launch of South Asian Women for Harris and South Asian Men for Harris; $400,000 has already been raised and thousands of volunteers have signed up. “At the first event of South Asian Women for Harris, which we organised in 72 hours; 10,000 women joined the call and over 500 new volunteers signed up. A phenomenal $285,000 was raised; of which a large part came from small and grassroots level contributions,” she said.
Not just a supporter of Harris, Krishnan considers herself a friend as well. “Over the last few years, we friends and supporters, went to the White House every couple of months to meet her and present feedback on political issues,” she said.
As a 2024 DNC delegate, Krishnan is now looking forward to campaigning across the US, especially in battleground states. “South Asians are supporting VP Harris in a big way and the community is setting many records. A record $310 million has been raised for the campaign and Indian American donors are a big part of the fund raising efforts,” Krishnan said. She is excited about the DNC in Chicago between August 19 and 22, where Harris will formally be anointed as the Presidential candidate. “There are a record number of South Asians attending the convention and a special reception for South Asian delegates is being held in Chicago on August 19. As delegates from California, we will be cheering Harris from prime seats, since we consider California as her home state and she is our girl. I am very excited about her landmark speech at the DNC,” says Krishnan who is California Democratic Party finance committee co-chair and a whip for the state’s DNC delegates. A classical performing vocalist, who is actively involved in arts advocacy efforts, Krishnan is one of the organisers of a meet and greet event, in support of Harris, for the Indian American community in California this weekend.
English (US) · 