May 7 (UPI) -- Democratic Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi announced he intends to run for a seat on the U.S. Senate in Illinois Wednesday.
The 51-year-old Krishnamoorthi, D-Ill., announced his candidacy as he took aim at President Donald Trump and Elon Musk, who has worked with the Trump administration to cut government jobs and programs through the Department of Government Efficiency.
In his campaign video, he called Trump "a President ignoring the Constitution," who is "surrounded by billionaire backers and MAGA extremists, threatening our rights, rigging the rules to line their pockets, wrecking the economy."
He also promised he'd "restore women's freedom to make their own health decisions, to keep guns away from people who shouldn't have them, to keep these extremists from gutting vital programs like Medicaid, that help people, and to stop the chaos driving up costs."
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Krishnamoorthi said in an interview with NBC News that he has a "career of standing up to bullies."
"If I had any doubts about running for the Senate, I think they were erased after what we'e seen in the first 100 days of the Trump administration," he said. "A lot of people feel like the American dream is out of reach right now and it's made even more impossible because of the economic chaos that Donald Trump and DOGE and Elon Musk have unleashed. And I and my family have enjoyed the American dream. ... And I feel it's my mission to ensure that it's available ot otehrs, accesible to others."
Krishnamoorthi is only one of a group of candidates who would replace Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., who plans to retire from the Senate, as fellow Democrats Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton and Rep. Robin Kelly, D-Ill., have also announced runs. No Republican candidate has yet announced a run for the seat.
He currently serves as ranking member for both the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, and on the Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the U.S. and the Chinese Communist Party.
"Whoever the next senator is has to continue Senator Durbin's incredible legacy of representing the entire state in the U.S. Senate," Krishnamoorthi said in an interview with Politico on Wednesday. "As somebody who's from downstate, who represents the suburbs and who's worked in the city for many years, I think that I bring some of the qualities necessary to represent the full breadth of what it means to be an Illinoisan."
