Dr. Prasanth Reddy won the Republican 3rd Congressional District primary Tuesday night, giving him the chance to flip the increasingly-blue district back to red.
Reddy beat Karen Crnkovich by about 3,000 votes and a 53% to 47% margin in unofficial election returns in the Republican primary for the Kansas City-area seat in Congress. He raised around eight times as much money as Crnkovich. Reddy pulled in $1.3 million in campaign contributions.
He now faces Democratic U.S. Rep. Sharice Davids and Libertarian Steve Roberts in the general election.
Reddy immigrated to the U.S. from India when he was a child. He was raised in Kansas and graduated from Kansas State University with a bachelor’s degree in microbiology and psychology. He got his medical degree from the University of Kansas and is an alumnus of Harvard Business School. The lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Air Force Reserves has also worked as an oncologist.
Reddy leans far more conservative than Davids. He supports core conservative values like supporting police, backing gun rights and limiting government action on climate change. He also wants to stand up to China, partially because the country unleashed a virus, his campaign website said.
Reddy is anti-abortion but said any restrictions should have exceptions for rape, incest or the health of the mother. Davids supports abortion access.
He doesn’t support gender-affirming surgeries for transgender minors. Davids, who was the first openly LGTBQ Kansan elected to Congress, has consistently introduced legislation to support LGBTQ Kansans.
Reddy told KSN that securing the border is his top priority and said President Joe Biden’s border policies are making America less safe. He also falsely claimed that Davids “voted to allow noncitizens to vote in America’s elections.”
Davids has urged Biden to do more to secure the border, but she’s voted against conservative plans intended to stop illegal immigration.
Reddy has said he wants to see the Department of Homeland Security share the names of anyone on the country’s terror watch list encountered at the border. He’d also like Congress to pass the Cooper Davis Act, which requires “electronic communication service providers and remote computing services to report to the Attorney General certain controlled substances violations.” He also wants to reinstate former President Donald Trump’s remain-in-Mexico policy for asylum seekers.
“Let’s get rid of the welcome mat at the border for those who don’t come here the right way,” he said.
Those conservative priorities have not led to victory though. Davids beat incumbent U.S. Rep. Kevin Yoder in 2018. The district was redrawn in 2022 to include more conservative votes, but Davids’ victory over Republicans only increased.
This story was originally published by The Beacon, a fellow member of the KC Media Collective.
