Disgraced former Rep. Eric Swalwell’s (D-CA) term will be finished out by progressive state lawmaker Aisha Wahab, the first Afghan-American to be elected to the U.S. Congress.
Wahab, who also became the first Afghan-American elected official in the U.S. when she won a Hayward City Council seat in 2018, beat fellow Democrat Melissa Hernandez in a Tuesday evening special election that was called on Thursday by the Associated Press (AP).
With 95 percent of the votes counted for California’s Fourteenth Congressional District, Wahab came out on top with 53.1 percent over Hernandez’s 46.9 percent.
The candidates competed in a special runoff after finishing in the top two in the June 16 special primary after Swalwell suspended his gubernatorial campaign and resigned from office amid several sexual assault allegations, which he has denied. The special primary came two weeks after Wahab beat Hernandez by 21 points in the primary for the next full term that begins in January.
Hernandez, who currently serves as president of the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) board of directors and formerly served as the mayor of Dublin, California, lost even after super PACs aligned with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) reportedly “poured millions of dollars into ads” for her and against her opponent.
“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 she took a slight lead over Hernandez.
In a recently unearthed interview with Indian-American outlet PunjabiTV, Wahab pledged to be an advocate for foreign H-1B visa workers:
“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.
Olivia Rondeau is a politics reporter for Breitbart News based in Washington, DC. Find her on X/Twitter and Instagram.