Bangladeshi-American candidate Nina Ahmad’s campaign remains ‘cautiously optimistic’ as Pennsylvania on Tuesday goes out to elect Democratic Party candidate in primary elections for the post of Lieutenant Governor.
Voters will also elect the Republican candidate for the race, but this year the Democratic race is unusually crowded as the incumbent Lieutenant Governor, Mike Stack, is being challenged by four other candidates, including Ahmad, from his own party.
If he loses, he will be the first lieutenant governor of the state to lose re-election in a primary since the holder of the position was permitted two terms nearly half a century ago.
The candidates who win the primary elections in each party will run for the final race on a joint ticket with their party’s nominee for Governor in November.
Ahmad, a molecular biologist and entrepreneur, is a first-generation Bangladeshi immigrant who served as Philadelphia’s Deputy Mayor until late last year, and was also a member of President Obama’s Advisory Commission on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders.
She claims to have been deeply impacted by Bangladesh’s War of Liberation that she witnessed as a child in her home country.
Ahmad has run a robust campaign, even though she joined the race very late, and has spent the most on television advertisements to familiarise voters with her message.
Besides promising to be a face of the resistance that is ‘ready to take on Donald Trump’, she is also pledging a ‘warm, inclusive and welcoming America’.
Claiming that her messages ‘resonate’ with the voters, her campaign seemed confident of a victory in the Democratic race.
Vince Rongione, her campaign manager, told the Bangla Tribune that he is hopeful of a victory.
“We are cautiously optimistic but also confident because we have seen a lot of positive energy for her,” he said.
Incumbent Lieutenant Governor Mike Stack’s spokesperson, meanwhile, has labeled Ahmad ‘a fraud who sells herself as a progressive while in reality she is a big-city millionaire real estate developer like Donald Trump’.
Ahmad worked with her husband’s real estate development company in 2016 but left the job, claimed her team.
Observing that the comments from Stack’s team shows their ‘desperation’, Rongione said , “They will be lucky if they even manage to come third in the race,” he says.
A sitting LG is considered pretty safe in the primaries but Stack, a former Democratic Senator from Philadelphia, is in trouble ever since allegations rose from his residence staff and security team, about the treatment they were getting from the lieutenant governor and his wife.
Others in the race are Chester County Commissioner Kathi Cozzone, banker and insurance agent Ray Sosa and Braddock Mayor John Fetterman.
Ahmad’s campaign manager says they consider Fetterman as her closest rival.
If Ahmad wins, she will be the first Bangladeshi-American and the first Muslim nominee for this top race.