An Indian-American orthopedic trauma surgeon is giving a tough fight to a former diplomat, endorsed by US President Donald Trump, in Tennessee's Republican primary for the open US Senate seat.
Latest poll data show that 42-year-old Manish "Manny" Kumar Sethi, whose parents immigrated to the US from India in 1975, is in a statistical tie with businessman and former US Ambassador to Japan Bill Hagerty.
Voting for the Tennessee Republican primary was held on Friday.
Hagerty, a top contender for the Senate seat, was endorsed by none other than President Trump.
Sethi, whose popularity gained momentum in the last couple of weeks, argued that whether it is fixing healthcare, cutting runaway spending, stopping illegal immigration or ending the opioid epidemic, the president needs a trauma surgeon in the Senate who can act decisively for his patients, the people of Tennessee.
"I am not a politician. I am a surgeon, a conservative, a Republican and an outsider," he said.
The Republican or GOP (Grand Old Party) primary is scheduled to take place on August 6. Since Tennessee is a Republican bastion, the winner of August 6 primary, in all likelihood, would win the November 3 elections.
Incumbent Republican Senator from Tennessee, Lamar Alexander, announced in December 2018 that he will not seek a re-election.
Latest opinion poll show a narrow two percentage point difference between Hagerty (33) and Sethi (31). About three weeks ago, Hagerty was leading comfortably 27 to 11 points against Sethi.
If elected, he would be the second Indian-American Senator and the first from the Republican party to be elected to the US Senate. Democrat Kamala Harris from California is the first Indian-origin Senator to be elected to the US Senate.
"My parents were legal immigrants, who came from India, and practiced medicine for 25 years in a small town in Coffee County, Tennessee. I grew up next to a corn field in Hillsboro, a town that made its living through farming. People didn’t have a lot but they had each other and from a very young age I learned the power of local community," Sethi said on his website on the reasons for him to run for the US Senate.
"I want to make a different kind of difference and be your next United States Senator. The American Dream I have lived is in great peril and I want to fight and keep it alive. For too long career politicians in Washington have said one thing and done the other while people in places like Coffee County, and the rest of Tennessee pay the price for a government that is out of touch with its own citizens," he said.
An orthopedic trauma surgeon and Associate Professor at a leading trauma care hospital in Nashville, Sethi is the founder of Healthy Tennessee, a nonprofit organisation designed to promote preventative health care across the state. Besides Sethi, two other Indian-Americans -- Sara Gideon from Democratic party in Maine and Republican Rick Mehta in New Jersey -- are in the race for a seat in US Senate this year.
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