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Ankit Jain
Ankit Jain (Democratic Party) is a member of the U.S. Senate shadow delegates, District of Columbia, representing the District of Columbia. He assumed office on January 3, 2025. His current term ends on January 3, 2031.
Jain (Democratic Party) ran for election to the U.S. Senate shadow delegates, District of Columbia to represent the District of Columbia. He won in the general election on November 5, 2024.
Jain completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2024. Click here to read the survey answers.
Biography
Ankit Jain graduated from James Madison High School. He earned a bachelor's degree from the University of Chicago in 2015 and a law degree from Columbia Law School in 2019. His career experience includes working as an attorney. He has been affiliated with FairVote, Sierra Club, and Ward 2 Democrats.[1]
Elections
2024
See also: United States House of Representatives election in the District of Columbia, 2024
General election
General election for U.S. Shadow Senator District of Columbia
Ankit Jain defeated Nelson Rimensnyder in the general election for U.S. Shadow Senator District of Columbia on November 5, 2024.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ |  | Ankit Jain (D)  | 89.9 | 265,360 |
 | Nelson Rimensnyder (R) | 9.1 | 26,968 | |
| Other/Write-in votes | 0.9 | 2,705 | ||
| Total votes: 295,033 | |||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
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Democratic primary election
Democratic primary for U.S. Shadow Senator District of Columbia
Ankit Jain defeated Eugene D. Kinlow in the Democratic primary for U.S. Shadow Senator District of Columbia on June 4, 2024.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ | | Ankit Jain | 53.1 | 41,664 |
 | Eugene D. Kinlow | 44.7 | 35,108 | |
| Other/Write-in votes | 2.2 | 1,694 | ||
| Total votes: 78,466 | |||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team. | ||||
Withdrawn or disqualified candidates
Republican primary election
No Republican candidates ran in the primary.
Withdrawn or disqualified candidates
- Quinn K. Nii (R)
Endorsements
To view Jain's endorsements as published by their campaign, click here. Ballotpedia did not identify endorsements for Jain in this election.
Campaign themes
2024
Campaign website
Ankit Jain’s campaign website stated the following:
| “ |
DC STATEHOOD Achieving statehood for D.C. will be Ankit’s #1 priority as Shadow Senator, and Ankit has a plan to make it happen. Ankit will work across the aisle with Republicans to get them to see the injustice and racism of denying over 700,000 Americans, a majority of whom are people of color and a plurality of whom are Black, the right to vote. If that is unsuccessful, Ankit will use his connections with pro-democracy advocacy organizations and congressional offices to push for D.C. statehood to be included in the big pro-democracy bill Democrats have advocated for over the past several years. Then, the next time Democrats have full control of government, he will work with the entire statehood and pro-democracy community to push that bill through the House. He will push for the Senate to create a filibuster exception for that bill and pass the bill through the Senate on a simple majority vote. Finally, he will work to ensure the President signs it into law. CONGRESSIONAL INTERFERENCE IN DC AFFAIRS Ankit will work as hard as he can to protect all local D.C. laws from being overturned by Congress and to prevent Congress from passing federal laws dictating local policy to the city, no matter his personal opinion on the issues. Ankit believes the Shadow Senator position can lead and coordinate efforts by the statehood community to keep Congress’ hands off DC and can ensure that the movement is being as effective as possible. Ankit will be especially focused on protecting any update the Council passes to D.C.'s over 100-year-old Criminal Code to ensure D.C. has a modern Criminal Code that properly deals with crime. He will also fight fiercely to protect the Local Resident Voting Rights Act of 2021 that granted the right to vote in local elections to non-citizens, including the Treasurer of Ankit’s own campaign, and which Congress has already tried to overturn. FEDERAL FUNDING FOR DC DEMOCRATIC PRIORITIES Ankit will work as D.C.’s elected advocate before the Senate to ensure that Congress properly funds D.C. priorities in the bills it is moving. He will fight against proposals that provide D.C. less funding than other states or that block our local government from spending its own money. For example, Ankit will work to eliminate the congressional budget prohibitions on providing local funding for abortions for low-income women and for legalizing marijuana. He will also work to secure federal funding for important local priorities, such as annual operating expenses for the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Association (WMATA) to address WMATA’s fiscal cliff, and funding to build either the Blue Line Loop or Silver Line Express–either of which would greatly improve Metro’s service levels and connectivity. FEDERAL GUN LAWS TO PREVENT CRIME D.C. is experiencing a devastating crime spike. Gun violence takes more lives by far than any other kind of violence in the District of Columbia. While D.C. has strong local laws regulating guns, it is very close to several states where anyone can buy a gun without a background check and bring it back to the District. D.C. is also dealing with a rise in crimes committed by “ghost gun” kits that are shipped to D.C. from suppliers all over the country. Congressional Republicans often attack D.C. for its high crime rates, but Congress deserves as much blame for this as our local government. Ankit will use his platform as Shadow Senator to push Congress to pass common-sense federal gun laws that will reduce crime more than any other step the government can take. LOCAL CONTROL OVER HOUSING Congress currently imposes a limit on how tall buildings in Washington D.C. can be. Ankit believes that these kinds of local issues should be left to the D.C. Council, which is actually equipped to balance the tradeoffs between preserving D.C.’s skyline and building more housing to reduce D.C.’s high rent and home prices. Ankit will work with the D.C. government to remove the congressionally-imposed Height Act so that the Council can impose a height limit that is informed by the perspectives of D.C. residents. ENSURE DIVERSE ELECTED LEADERSHIP THROUGH CONSTITUTIONAL CHANGES Ankit believes that as many communities as possible should have representation in their legislature. D.C.’s current system of electing one representative for each of eight wards does not accomplish that goal. Under the D.C. Constitution, when D.C. becomes a state the size of the Council (to be renamed the Legislative Assembly) will be expanded by electing one additional representative per ward. But this system also does not grant proper representation for minority communities. Two years after statehood is achieved, a Constitutional Convention will be held to consider amendments to the D.C. Constitution. Ankit will work with people across D.C. to try to build a consensus on changes that should be made to the D.C. Constitution during that Convention to ensure that minority communities (such as the Latino and LGBTQ+ communities) are able to elect representatives of their choice, while ensuring majority communities maintain their fair share of representation. This could include proportional representation (potentially paired with an increase in the number of representatives), reducing the size of districts and increasing their number, or some other solution. [2] |
” |
| —Ankit Jain’s campaign website (2024)[3] | ||
Video for Ballotpedia
| Video submitted to Ballotpedia Released May 27, 2024 |
Ballotpedia survey responses
See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection
Ankit Jain completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2024. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Jain's responses. Candidates are asked three required questions for this survey, but they may answer additional optional questions as well.
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I have taken the lead in D.C.’s fight for statehood, for a stronger democracy, and in getting young people involved in local Democratic politics. I am an active member of the D.C. Democrats Statehood Committee and regularly attend D.C. Vote and Hands Off D.C. rallies against congressional interference in local affairs. I founded the Young Democrats of Ward 2 to get young people more involved within the Ward 2 Democrats. I was also selected as a member of the Ward 2 Advisory Neighborhood Commission (ANC) Redistricting Taskforce, tasked with redrawing the Ward 2 ANC boundaries after redistricting.
I attended law school at Columbia University. While there, I was one of the lead organizers of the NYC March for Our Lives for stronger gun laws, which drew over 200,000 attendees. I completed my undergraduate degree at the University of Chicago; I spent a summer during my undergrad interning with the D.C. Public Defender Service.- I have the vision, the skills, and the experience that D.C. needs to get statehood across the finish line and stop Congress from interfering in our local affairs. I have legislative advocacy experience through my work with FairVote and Sierra Club. I have a different vision for how this position can be used and will not fall prey to status-quo thinking that has not served us up to now. I see this position as our chief lobbyist and organizer for our rights before Congress. Finally, I am hardworking and determined. I will use all those skills to advocate effectively for D.C.
- I will serve as a liaison between the Council and Congress as the Council is considering legislation to understand how Congress will react and see if there are ways we can tweak or message bills to avoid congressional interference. However, sometimes we will have to fight Republicans in Congress over important legislation. I will defend every D.C. law no matter my personal opinion on the legislation or what the Mayor or any member of the D.C. Council thinks.
- I will fight for positive action by Congress on important D.C. priorities. For example, I will work to secure federal funding to avoid the devastating service cuts Metro faces, and then to expand service by building the Blue Line Loop or Silver Line Express. I will fight to remove the federal Height Act so that our local government can weigh the tradeoffs between preserving D.C.’s skyline and building more housing to reduce D.C.’s high rent and home prices. I will work to remove restrictions on our local government helping low-income women afford abortions and that stop us from legalizing the sale of marijuana.
In addition, I am a strong environmentalist. In a city context that means I support stronger public transit, more bike lanes, and denser housing to reduce the need for people to use cars and cut down on our greenhouse gas emissions.
I also bring legislative advocacy experience to this position. I am a voting rights attorney with the ranked-choice voting group FairVote, and I worked as an attorney for the Sierra Club for four years before that. In both of those roles, I have run numerous advocacy campaigns to get important bills and regulations passed. I will use that experience to be an effective lobbyist for D.C. Finally, I will use my connections with the nationwide pro-democracy community to get this community to fight hard for D.C. statehood. We need more than words—we need these organizations to stand strong when the going gets tough and the possibility of “compromise” on the backs of D.C. citizens comes up. These organizations can be some of our strongest allies in convincing wavering Senators and Representatives to vote yes on D.C. statehood, since many of them have a strong on-the-ground presence in these representatives’ districts, and I want to partner with them effectively.
Looking at the push for statehood, the movement has been lacking a clear, forward-thinking strategy on how we can actually make statehood happen. I will bring that clear strategy and vision to this fight. The most likely path to achieving statehood is by getting a filibuster exception for the bill in the Senate (perhaps as part of a larger nationwide pro-voting bill) and passing the bill through Congress on a simple majority vote when Democrats have full control of government. But regardless of what strategy we pursue, I will work with the entire statehood community, from the mayor to D.C. Vote to our Council to the many other organizations advocating for statehood, to get us all on the same page and pursuing the same strategy with the same messaging. Every group and person has a unique role to play, and I want to serve as a unifier to make sure our movement is greater than the sum of its parts.
Note: Ballotpedia reserves the right to edit Candidate Connection survey responses. Any edits made by Ballotpedia will be clearly marked with [brackets] for the public. If the candidate disagrees with an edit, he or she may request the full removal of the survey response from Ballotpedia.org. Ballotpedia does not edit or correct typographical errors unless the candidate's campaign requests it.
See also
2024 Elections
Government
External links
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Candidate U.S. Shadow Senator District of Columbia |
Personal |
Footnotes
| Political offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Michael D. Brown |
U.S. Shadow Senator District of Columbia 2025-Present |
Succeeded by - |
