Jay Vaingankar, 28, is a Democrat running for Congress in New Jersey’s 12th District. He used to work for the Biden White House and the Department of Energy. He is also the son of immigrants from Mumbai, India, raised in Hightstown, New Jersey. If he wins, he will be the first South Asian American to represent New Jersey in Congress. But that’s not what recently got him noticed online. What caught attention was a campaign ad he recorded in Hindi.
Jay put out an ad to connect with South Asian voters in New Jersey, and it took off on social media. In the video, Vaingankar addresses the “Desi” community (people with South Asian roots), touching on things like representation, local leadership, and the rise of a new generation in politics.
He released the ad without any English subtitles. That makes sense, since New Jersey’s 12th District is incredibly diverse and has one of the largest South Asian American populations in the country. It was a clear campaign move. But as soon as the ad landed on X, most of that context disappeared.
Vaingankar grew up surrounded by people speaking 63 different languages, which is where he picked up his Spanish. He went to the University of Pennsylvania, then landed a job in the Biden White House. After that, he moved over to the Department of Energy and worked on rolling out clean energy projects tied to the Inflation Reduction Act.
Once the administration wrapped up, he returned to New Jersey and started grassroots campaigning. His team says he isn’t taking any corporate PAC money. The Democratic primary in NJ-12 is on June 2, and there are 18 candidates in the field.
Internet Reacts To New Jersey Congressional Candidate’s Hindi Campaign Ad
The video drew a torrent of responses on X, and a significant portion of them had nothing to do with policy. Many users reacted with hostility rooted in assumptions about Vaingankar’s background, questioning whether he truly belonged in American politics simply because of the language he chose to speak.
Some users zeroed in on language and assimilation, arguing that English should be required. “It used to be a requirement to speak English if you were going to be a citizen of the United States,” one person wrote.
Others made their hostility more explicit, with one commenter declaring that people like Vaingankar “come over here and don’t assimilate,” a claim particularly striking given that Vaingankar was raised in New Jersey and is a U.S. citizen. The same user added: “They all need to go home.”
Others took an even more conspiratorial turn, with some openly questioning his legal status in the country and demanding to know whether he had “proper paperwork.”
Not everyone on the platform responded with hostility, however. “That’s interesting — using multiple languages can be a way to reach a broader, more diverse voter base, especially in a place like New Jersey,” one user commented, pointing out what political campaigns across the country have done for decades.
The video is picking up steam mostly because of how people are reacting to it, not because of anything especially new in the ad itself. Vaingankar wasn’t breaking any rules, since candidates in all sorts of places campaign in different languages all the time.
But this ad turned heads because of the guy at the center of it and how he came across. For a lot of people watching the drama unfold, the uproar wasn’t about the language at all. It was about the fact that a South Asian American man was out there running for Congress and was finally big enough to get noticed.
