Progressive California state lawmaker Aisha Wahab is set to complete the remainder of former Rep. Eric Swalwell’s (D-CA) term, making history as the first Afghan-American elected to the U.S. Congress.
Wahab, who previously broke ground in 2018 as the first Afghan-American elected official in the United States after winning a seat on the Hayward City Council, defeated fellow Democrat Melissa Hernandez in Tuesday’s special election. The Associated Press called the race on Thursday.
With 95 percent of ballots counted in California’s Fourteenth Congressional District, Wahab led with 53.1 percent of the vote, while Hernandez trailed with 46.9 percent.
The contest advanced to a special runoff after both Democrats finished as the top two candidates in the June 16 special primary. The vacancy followed Swalwell’s suspension of his gubernatorial campaign and resignation from Congress amid multiple sexual assault allegations, which he has denied. That special primary took place two weeks after Wahab defeated Hernandez by 21 points in the primary for the full congressional term beginning in January.
Hernandez, the current president of the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) board of directors and a former mayor of Dublin, California, fell short despite outside support. Super PACs aligned with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) reportedly spent millions of dollars on advertisements backing Hernandez and targeting Wahab.
“I’m very proud of this district for not listening to the hate-mongering and really knowing and believing the work that I’ve done,” Wahab told KQED on Tuesday night, after early results showed her narrowly ahead of Hernandez.
Wahab has also drawn attention for comments in a recently resurfaced interview with Indian-American outlet PunjabiTV, where she promised to advocate for foreign workers on H-1B visas.
“This is far more crucial than I think people understand … Why are we not training our next generation of leaders and technologists and doctors and nurses and so much more?” she said in the clip.
Swalwell’s seat has been open since his April resignation, and will still have to be fought for in the November election, where both Wahab and Hernandez will again be on the ballot, this time vying for a full two-year term.
