Last month, political newcomer Ethan Agarwal launched a congressional bid to unseat Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Santa Clara), who has represented California’s 17th district in the House since 2017 and in 2024 won re-election comfortably with more than 65 percent of the vote. Khanna, a progressive with a national profile, recently said he will consider a run for president in 2028.
Agarwal’s campaign has raised more than $400,000 in the last four weeks, half of it small-dollar donations, he told J. prior to the release of quarterly campaign finance data. (For his part, Khanna told Politico’s Playbook his campaign raised over $1.8 million last quarter, from 30,000 individual contributors.)
Some Jewish and Israeli American constituents say Khanna, who has made harsh statements about Israel over the last two years, has gone too far to the left. He has said numerous times that Israel committed a genocide in Gaza, a claim Israel and many of its supporters believe is false. Last week, he said he would oppose future military aid to Israel, including for missile defense.
“To say that the CA-17 Jewish community is concerned about Khanna’s congressional run is an understatement,” said Tali Klima, spokesperson for the advocacy group Bay Area Jewish Coalition-Action, a separate political entity from the Bay Area Jewish Coalition, which is only focused on schools. Klima said her organization is “invigorated” by Agarwal’s campaign.
It’s not difficult to see how Agarwal is connecting with Jewish voters. On social media, he routinely trolls Khanna, especially over issues about funding and support for Israel. He’s also made inroads in the Jewish community, visiting local synagogues and, this week, attending a Mimouna celebration, a Moroccan Jewish tradition to mark the end of Passover.
Agarwal, 40, launched a brief run for governor last summer before focusing his political ambitions on unseating Khanna. The son of Indian immigrants, Agarwal was born in Montreal and raised in Saratoga. He attended middle and high school at Harker School, an elite college prep school in San Jose.
A tech entrepreneur, Agarwal founded and later sold Aaptiv, a popular fitness app, and Coterie, a consumer fintech company. He interned for Sen. Dianne Feinstein while he was an undergraduate at Johns Hopkins University. In 2010, while at Wharton Business School, Agarwal spent 10 days traveling through Israel on a trip organized by Israeli students.
“Before I went there, and after I went there, I felt very differently, and I felt even stronger in the relationship between the U.S. and Israel,” he told J.
He also attended the AIPAC annual conventions in Washington in 2005 and 2006.
His campaign priorities include banning members of Congress from stock trading, alleviating childhood hunger in the district and improving public transportation.
Agarwal sat down with J. this week to talk about the race for CA-17. J. interviewed Khanna in a one-on-one session in October.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
You’re running to unseat Rep. Ro Khanna. In your tweets you don’t mince words about where you see his faults, especially around Israel. That, in turn, has energized people in the Jewish and Israeli community. What about your campaign is resonating with them?
I’ve had dozens of conversations with Jewish constituents. I think the frustration that they feel is twofold. One is, he was actually an ally for the Jewish people when he first ran for Congress in 2012 and 2014, and the Jewish community supported him when he was elected in 2016. In the last four or five years, he’s completely turned his back. So it’s the hypocrisy that’s part of the frustration.
The second part of it is that he is really eager to become president of the United States, and he thinks the way to do that is to run to the far left.
Israel is an ally. The millions and millions of Jewish people in this country are good citizens who contribute to our economy, who are good family members, who should not have to experience racism and hatred just for sending their kids to school or just for speaking Hebrew in public.
America has seen a huge surge in antisemitic incidents and hate crimes against Jews, and every city is dealing with some form of it. But what’s unique about the 17th congressional district is Sunnyvale, an enclave of Israeli expats. It probably has one of the highest concentrations of Israeli residents in the Bay Area, and that’s pretty special. What’s your relationship with the Israeli community in Silicon Valley?
I’ve been fortunate to receive a lot of support from the Jewish community within the 17th district. What I’m finding is they just want to be heard. There’s a part of the community that feels like what Bibi [Netanyahu] is doing is actually hurting the Jewish community in America. A lot of the Jewish people here, this is my understanding, are not fanatical supporters of Bibi. I will admit I don’t support everything that he does either; his actions can be seen as extreme, and that creates frustration. They want to be able to live their lives here, comfortably in peace, to practice their religion, to raise their children.
Khanna has been firm about his belief that Israel committed genocide against Palestinians in its war with Hamas, a view held by many other elected officials. That has alienated some of his Jewish constituents. What’s your view?
Look, it’s not a genocide in Gaza. There is undoubtedly a humanitarian crisis there. What Israel has done in Gaza, I don’t agree with all of it. I will not call it a genocide, though, because it’s not a genocide. That specific word has very specific implications and has historical precedent, and it’s not a word that should be casually thrown around. I think [Khanna] uses it again as a bit of a dog whistle, because he wants to come across as being strongly anti-Israel. Israel has a right to defend itself, and I think we need Israel as an ally.
You’ve said publicly you support the U.S. funding Israel’s defense, including Iron Dome, after Khanna stated the opposite in a televised interview. What is your position on funding Israel with defensive arms and weapons?
Israel should have everything it needs to defend itself. I think defensive weapons are, without a doubt, something that we should be providing. The best offense is a strong defense. And so if Israel is well equipped, if Israel is well armed, it will protect Israel.
We signed this two-week [ceasefire] with Iran last night, and I’m seeing reports this morning of rockets being sent into Tel Aviv. That tells me that Israel is still under attack, and we need to make sure that Israel is safe and the people there are safe. I’ve been hearing stories of people living in shelters or in bunkers basically since we attacked Iran, like a month ago. The more that Israel is under attack, the more that we need to be providing the tools to protect them.
The word Zionist has become extremely contentious and is often weaponized against Jews who support Israel, or even those who don’t. What are your thoughts?
I understand it’s being used as a weapon. I don’t understand why that would be the case. To me, a Zionist is someone who believes in a place for Jewish people, like a geographic place, and that geographic place is Israel. I don’t understand why that would cause so much consternation or be used as an insult.
I’ve said this earlier, and I’ll say it again: I don’t agree with everything that the government of Israel does. I don’t think you have to agree with everything that the government of a nation does in order to support that nation, or in order to believe that that nation has a right to exist. To me, I think what people are trying to do is tie a desire for a Jewish state to the actions of Bibi, and I don’t think that’s a fair comparison.
You haven’t held political office before. Why did you decide to run for Congress the first time out?
I don’t come from a political background. I’m an entrepreneur. I’m a business guy, and I’ve been complaining about the fact that there aren’t enough business people in politics. I think it’s good to have someone who knows what it’s like to hire someone or even have to let someone go, someone who can read a balance sheet. I think these things are important. And so after I sold my company last year, I also turned 40, a bit of a milestone. And I said, OK, it’s time for me to get involved and time for me to try to give back.