Peter Jacob, a 30-year-old Kerala native raised in Union, N.J., ran unopposed as a Democrat in the state’s June 7 primary election.
WASHINGTON (Diya TV) — Peter Jacob, an Indian-American Democratic social worker from New Jersey, is seeking to unseat Rep. Leonard Lance (R-NJ) this November in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Jacob ran unopposed in this month’s primary election for the seat Lance has occupied since 2009. It’s the same seat which Upendra Chivukula — the first Indian-American to be elected to the New Jersey state assembly — made an unsuccessful play for in 2012, falling short by more than 50,000 votes to Lance.
Another Indian-American candidate, Thomas Abraham, ran to unseat Lance in 2008 and received less than one percent of the vote. The 7th Congressional District is touted to be a strong arm for the GOP, the party has retained the seat for the last 100 years, except during a brief six-year period from 1975 through 1981.
However, Jacobs is looking to break the precedent, using the fact that Lance has voiced public support for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump as a vehicle to propel him to office. The district has a large amount of voters in the foreign demographic, Jacob said.
“It is ironic to me that Leonard Lance has endorsed Donald Trump, because Trump has preached out against the type of politician that Leonard Lance is,” he said. “When they [his parents] arrived in 1986, they had three things with them. Just $20 in their pockets, hearts full of hope and six-months-old me in their arms.”
While in college, Jacob worked as a student activist and leader. He spent time working with Coalition Against Trafficking in Women, the YWCA and the International Institute.
