
Ritu Jha-
At a high-profile fundraising event hosted by Silicon Valley based Venture Capitalists Tim Draper, a few Indian Americans were present to support Indian American Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley on Feb 6. Nimarata ‘Nikki’ Haley, former UN Ambassador and two-time South Carolina governor announced her 2024 US presidential race on Feb 14 last year. Tickets for the event topped out at $16,600 per person.
Despite trailing her former boss and now rival Donald Trump, Haley has announced she will not give up her race. She lost to Trump in Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada. Though most Indian Americans are Democrats there are independent voters who told indica after attending Haley’s fundraising that they might support her.

“Haley is a fighter and sensible thinker, she will do us good,” said Vinita Gupta (pictured with Haley above right), a Silicon Valley entrepreneur and the first Indian American woman to take her company public. “She is the most eligible candidate,” Gupta said. “Biden (President Joe Biden) is too old for the job. He is my second choice.”
“I like Nikki Haley because she’s moderate on core issues,” said Venkatesh Shukla (picture with Haley, above left), founder and general partner of Monta Vista Capital and President of The Indus Entrepreneur (TiE) Silicon Valley and Chairman of TiE Global. He supports Haley, and was invited to the fundraiser. Shukla is not a registered Republican, but said he is a Haley’s supporter, not only because she is an Indian American but also because of her moderate stance on a number of major public issues like abortion.
“I’m totally independent, I vote based on merits,” he told indica over phone, sounding proud of supporting an Indian candidate. “The rest of my house is Democrat,” he laughed.
Shukla said Democrats want to take it to another extreme. “We have to avoid the two extremes,” he said. “That’s why I like Nikki Haley. She’s moderate on core issues. For instance, on abortion, she has said that Republicans are taking an extreme position, that it’s a very personal decision, and you should not demonize anyone for the decisions they make on this issue. She said that instead of politicizing this issue, I think we should focus on areas where the entire country is more or less united, which has just banned late abortion. And Democrat or Republican, everyone agrees with that. Her only problem is that she’s in a party that has been taken over by Trump,” Shukla told indica,
Haley spoke to her supporters extensively during the two-and-a-half-hour meeting.

“She is moderate on foreign policy as well. She thinks that you have to support Ukraine regardless,” said Shukla. “She is the most sensible among all the political candidates, unlike Vivek Ramaswamy. If you look from the competence and, experience standpoint, she is the best candidate according to me.”
On Feb 24, Haley will face 77-year-old former President Donald Trump. She has launched a new slogan this week, “Make America Normal Again” to counter Trump’s successful “Make America Great Again.” Shukla told indica, “During the interaction, people asked her about polarization in the country and she said it all starts from the top. She says when she was in South Carolina, eight people were gunned down by a white supremacist. She had brought down the confederate flags in all the South Carolina office buildings. She said it was not to disrespect to anybody’s feelings. She said that we have to look to the future, and if this is such a divisive element, then let’s just move beyond this. And she says there was no backlash. She knows how to make the right decisions, but more importantly, how to make the right decisions that stick without creating further polarization. I like that response.”
He said, “The reason I support Indian Americans is for the future of our kids and grandkids. It is important that both the major political parties get used to the idea of Indians being in the highest positions of power. And the Democratic Party, thanks to Kamala Harris and Ro Kanna and the others, is getting there. But I think the Republican Party also needs to get there. And our best bet is Haley.”