NEW YORK: Indian-American entrepreneur Suneel Gupta, seeking to enter the House of Representatives from Michigan, lost the primary elections in the state, coming at third place with over 5000 votes behind the winner Haley Stevens. Gupta, 38, received 18,873 votes or 21.3 per cent in the Democratic primary with 100 per cent of precincts reporting.
Stevens, who had been endorsed by former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, won the election with 27 per cent or 23,997 votes. Stevens is a former Obama Administration official. Current Michigan Representative Tim Greimel was in second place with 19,317 votes.
In the race for Michigan governor, Indian-American Thanedar lost the primary election. Gretchen Whitmer, a former Democratic leader in the Michigan state Senate, won her partys nomination for governor in primary. Whitmer defeated former Detroit health director Abdul El-Sayed and Thanedar. Whitmer, 46, will face Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette, 64, winner of the Republican primary, in the general election for the open governor’s seat.
Running on a platform of expanding health-care access and lowering costs, Gupta was among five candidates contesting in the Democratic primary from the 11th Congressional District of Michigan. The winner will face the Republican nominee in the November general election to determine who succeeds retiring GOP Rep. Dave Trott of Birmingham.
Suneel, the younger brother of Emmy award winning journalist and Doctor Sanjay Gupta, had said that, if elected, his priority would be to make quality and affordable health-care available to all. “At a time when Donald Trump wants to cut Medicare by over USD 500 billon, I am the candidate in this race with hands-on healthcare experience who has stood up to the pharmaceutical companies who are ripping off families and seniors and I will fight him every step of the way,” he said on his campaign website.
Suneel comes from an illustrious Indian-American family from Michigan. His parents, Subhash and Damyanti Gupta, moved from India to the US in 1960s.
His mother was recently featured by the Time magazine for being the first female engineer at the Ford Motor Company. Suneel, in a recent statement, had said that he has broken the fund raising record by rising more than USD 1.3 million; which is highest among all the candidates running for the Congress from the seat.
In 2012, Gupta’s brother helped him start Rise, a company that uses technology to reduce the cost of quality health-care. After the startup served over 1,000 patients, former first lady Michelle Obama asked Rise to be her team’s official technology partner. Suneel holds an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management and a law degree from Northwestern Law School. PTI
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