Virginia State Sen. Suhas Subramanyam carried the 10th Congressional District, an open seat centered in Loudoun County, by about 5% of the vote, defeating Republican tech executive and conservative commentator Mike Clancy, according to unofficial results.
Subramanyam will make history as Virginia’s first Indian-American congressman, elected to represent a rapidly-developing district in the D.C. exurbs that includes all of Loudoun and Fauquier counties and parts of Rappahanock, Prince William, and Fairfax counties.
On the campaign trail, Subramanyam often talked about his family’s history, beginning when his parents immigrated to the United States, first landing at Dulles Airport — which is in the district he will now represent in Congress. (Subramanyam grew up in Houston, Texas.)
“They came here to build a life and live the American dream. And through all the trials and tribulations, through the homesickness and the cultural barriers and the food that wasn’t spicy enough, they made a life here. And it was because they were welcomed here,” he said, to cheers from his supporters at his campaign watch party.
Subramanyam was introduced by Democratic Rep. Jennifer Wexton, the sitting member of Congress who is resigning after a diagnosis of supranuclear palsy, a progressive neurological disease. Wexton, who endorsed Subramanyam in a tough primary, said she trusted him to carry on her legacy — and she thanked the 10th District Democrats who helped her flip the seat blue in 2018.
“I just want to say thank you to all of you here, to the many, many Virginians who supported my campaigns and the people of VA-10 for the trust you placed in me as your representative in Congress for the past six years,” Wexton said through an AI program that models her voice. “There’s no one I trust more to serve this district, to carry on my legacy and build on the progress we’ve made than Suhas Subrahmanyam.”
Subramanyam is no stranger to historic firsts: His 2019 election to Virginia’s House of Delegates made him the first Indian-American and Hindu elected to the General Assembly.
“We’ve seen incredible growth in the South Asian American community here in the DMV over the last two decades,” said Chintan Patel, the executive director of Indian-American Impact Fund, which supports South Asian candidates for office. “Finally, representation is starting to catch up.”
Patel said the 10th District is home to 65,000 residents of South Asian descent.
Subramanyam sees growing political engagement, too.
“We have an Asian American caucus now in Virginia, that we didn’t have 5 years ago. And so when you start seeing that you go out to the polls and you win, then you wanna go back and you wanna promote more candidates,” he said on WAMU’s The Politics Hour with Kojo Nnamdi. “Winning is addictive, I think.”
At an October campaign event that doubled as a celebration of Diwali and Tihar — religious festivals celebrated by people of Indian and Nepali heritage around the world — attendees gathered in a campaign office festooned with brightly-colored garlands and “Happy Diwali!” signs. They watched a performance of the Kumari dance, a traditional Nepalese performance — and they cheered during Subramanyam’s stump speech.
Many voiced their pride in Subramanyam’s accomplishments.
“Everybody embraces him just like their own son…and everybody thinks that they are family,” said Prabha Bhattarai Deuja, a longtime activist in the Northern Virginia Nepali community. “That’s just a beautiful thing to feel.”
Subramanyam is clear that he aims to represent all residents of the 10th District — whether they celebrate the same holidays he does, or not. But he also acknowledges the significance of his victory for the South Asian community.
“When I first started this, people told me to change my name. It was something people told me, ‘Suhas Subramanyam is not an electable name,’” he told WAMU. And so, to actually keep the name and be true to myself and be proud of who I am and my heritage and still be elected to Congress means a lot to me and to them.”
On the campaign trail, Subramanyam touted his General Assembly accomplishments, particularly legislation that required the state to take into account commuters’ ability to pay when approving requests for toll increases on the Dulles Greenway — a move that blocked a proposed 40% toll hike earlier this year from the company that owns the roadway.
The fiery nature of the district’s primary contests carried over to the general election. Subramanyam attacked Clancy for his ties to the Heritage Foundation, the conservative think tank behind Project 2025 — a controversial blueprint for Trump’s presidency that calls for drastic changes to the federal workforce, gutting the nonpartisan civil service and dismantling entire government agencies. (Clancy, asked by WAMU in September if he agreed with a related Trump policy proposal to move 100,000 federal jobs out of the D.C. region, said he didn’t support it.)
Clancy, meanwhile, alleged Subramanyam, who touted his service as a volunteer firefighter on the campaign trail, had actually been terminated from the role in 2019. Subramanyam acknowledged that he was “not a natural firefighter” and struggled in training in an interview with The Washington Post. He said he left the role to focus on his position in the House of Delegates and parenting his infant daughter.
Mike Clancy has not yet offered a formal concession. Subramanyam told reporters on election night he had not heard from Clancy but hoped to sit down with him to discuss ideas for the district in the future.
In a sign of the political times, Subramanyam was endorsed by both Wexton and her old political rival, former Rep. Barbara Comstock, a moderate Republican who broke with her party to endorse Harris and multiple Democratic congressional candidates in Virginia.
Comstock praised Subramanyam’s focus on “the unique needs of the district, such as our federal employees and contractors, and opposing government shutdowns or disastrous partisan programs like Project 2025 which would devastate our area.”
There are 34,000 federal employees and contractors living in the 10th District.
Subramanyam’s victory triggered a special election for his state Senate seat, which covers eastern Loudoun County. Voters picked Democratic Del. Kannan Srinivasan and Republican activist Tumay Harding in firehouse primaries last weekend, and the special election will take place before the General Assembly session begins in January.
The race carries high stakes, with Democrats looking to maintain their single-seat majority in the state Senate. A win by Harding would flip control of the chamber to the GOP, with Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears as the tiebreaking vote.
