Sri Kulkarni is a national security expert and former Foreign Service Officer who has served in Russia, Iraq and other countries and speaks six languages.
He is the son of an Indian immigrant father and a direct descendant of Sam Houston on his mother’s side. He graduated from the University of Texas, Austin, with honors, and earned a master’s degree in Public Administration from Harvard. He later received a Pearson Fellowship to serve as a defense, foreign policy, and veterans’ affairs advisor for Senator Kirsten Gillibrand
Kulkarni ran for Congress in 2018 in this portion of Greater Houston, and lost by only five points to an incumbent Republican, Pete Olson. Olson, recognizing the handwriting on the wall about changing Texas, particularly the suburbs, has announced his retirement. The district is 26 percent Hispanic, 19 percent Asian and 12 percent black, and 43 percent of adults hold college degrees, among the highest in the state. The Cook Political Report rates the race a tossup.
Kulkarni is a strong supporter of diplomacy over war. He wrote, “I believe that a principled foreign policy should return us to our core values: promoting democracies, safeguarding human rights (including the rights for LGBTQ people and women), and working toward a world safe from the threat of nuclear annihilation.”
