Ro Khanna, an Obama administration alum with ties to the tech industry, will mount a primary challenge against longtime Democratic Rep. Mike Honda of California in 2014, he announced Tuesday. As the Huffington Post reported, Khanna is bringing on a number of Obama campaign alumni to run his campaign.
Jeremy Bird, Obama’s 2012 field director, will serve as Khanna’s general campaign consultant, and Steve Spinner, an advisor to almost 50 tech startup companies and an Energy Department stimulus advisor who helped Obama as a fundraising bundler during the 2012 campaign, will be Khanna’s campaign chairman, according to the Contra Costa Times…
Khanna has hired a medley of other Obama campaign staffers, including Mark Beatty, deputy director of Obama’s battleground states grassroots operation; Larry Grisolano, Obama’s director of paid media; and five others who served in various capacities on Obama’s presidential campaigns.
The San Francisco Chronicle has more on Khanna’s team.
Khanna, who teaches economics at Stanford University and law at Santa Clara University, served as deputy assistant secretary of commerce from 2009 to 2011 and as an appointee to the White House Business Council. Khanna plans to tout his ties to the tech industry in Silicon Valley, saying in his announcement video that “Silicon Valley changed the world. Now it’s time for us to change Washington.”
President Obama endorsed Honda, the popular incumbent, in January. Khanna has been preparing for the race for a while and his announcement was expected and his campaign account, opened in 2011, has over $1 million.
