Republican first-time candidate Jennifer Davis, a technology entrepreneur with two decades of business operations in India, is running for Illinois' 8th Congressional District seat being vacated by Indian American Democrat Raja Krishnamoorthi, who has represented the district since 2017. Davis, who built and later sold a technology company with roughly 240 employees and substantial operations in Hyderabad, says her professional biography makes her uniquely suited for a Congress grappling with artificial intelligence, data centres, and immigration.

From Wisconsin Farm to Congressional Race

Davis grew up the sixth of nine children on a farm in Wisconsin, where her parents also ran an auto repair business. She attended university to study education, Russian history, and English, and had planned to become a teacher. That changed when she and her husband launched a technology company while she was still in college — by graduation, the business was established enough that a teaching career no longer made financial sense.

The company expanded to India in 2002, opening an initial office in Kolkata before shifting operations to Hyderabad. The firm was sold to private equity in 2019, by which time it had roughly 240 employees and had employed an estimated 300 to 400 people over its history. Davis remained in an operating role until January 2023 and served on the board until April 2025.

Deep India Ties and a Personal Connection

Davis describes her relationship with India as formative rather than merely professional. Indians made up the majority of her company's workforce, and she said she personally helped Indian employees and their families relocate to the United States — meeting them at airports, guiding them to familiar grocery stores, and helping them settle into their communities.

'I really fell in love with the culture when we started to go to India,' she said.

Her husband's early insight shaped the company's India strategy. Rather than buying contract labour, he concluded the business should invest directly in people. 'I know what the problem is, that we were trying to buy labour, but instead we need to invest in people,' Davis quoted him as saying.

That experience, she argues, gives her an understanding of the Indian American community in a district that has an established Asian American and Indian American presence — and one that Krishnamoorthi, himself of Indian heritage, had represented for a decade.

Campaign Priorities: Economy, Technology and the 'Digital Dome'

Davis lists economic affordability as her first campaign priority, arguing it cannot be separated from government debt and the role the state plays in either enabling or obstructing opportunity. Her second major focus is technology. She has authored a white paper proposing what she calls a 'Digital Dome' — a framework premised on the argument that while the United States maintains formidable military defences, ordinary families remain exposed to digital threats entering through personal devices.

'Our bedrooms and our phones are being invaded every single day by predators,' she said, contending that parents and grandparents often lack the expertise or tools to respond and that this creates a responsibility for government.

She has identified Small Business, Energy and Commerce, and Financial Services as her preferred congressional committee assignments, citing her background in entrepreneurship, AI infrastructure, blockchain, and cryptocurrency respectively.

On H-1B Visas, Trump and Krishnamoorthi

On immigration, Davis struck a notably nuanced tone for a Republican candidate. 'What's going on right now with the H-1Bs is really hard and not really fair,' she said, also flagging the difficult transition international students face moving from study visas to work permits. 'We have to create a really strong pathway to citizenship for people who want to create an American dream,' she added.

On President Donald Trump, Davis rejected the idea that party affiliation requires automatic loyalty. 'To me, I think that the things that he does well, we should support, and the things that we disagree with, we should disagree with,' she said. She expressed satisfaction with border closures but said she was 'very dissatisfied with what's gone on with immigration as a whole.' On Trump's actions involving Iran, she said history alone would judge whether his timing and approach were correct.

Perhaps most striking was her assessment of the man she hopes to succeed. 'Raja's represented me for the last decade, and I feel like he's represented the district very well,' Davis said. After entering the race, she said she met mayors across the district and asked what Krishnamoorthi had done well and what they wished he had done differently, framing his record as a template to emulate regardless of party.

The Race and What Comes Next

Davis faces Democrat Melissa Bean, a former congresswoman who represented an earlier configuration of the district from 2005 to 2011, in a contest for an open seat. Davis said she has knocked on thousands of doors, made thousands of calls, and set a goal of holding 100 small meet-and-greet events. She is also undertaking what she calls the 'Ride the Line Bike Tour' — cycling 211 miles around the district's boundaries to highlight what she describes as gerrymandering. The outcome of the race will determine who fills a seat that carries particular significance for the district's large Indian American constituency.