U.S. Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi was racing back toward Washington, D.C., but not for a vote.

The Illinois Democrat had already knocked out back-to-back fundraisers in New York that September 2019 weekend, but Krishnamoorthi was determined to make a third event in northern Virginia, a former campaign staffer recalled in a recent interview. As the staffer drove along the New Jersey Turnpike, Krishnamoorthi realized they would arrive late.

“So he says, ‘You gotta speed,’” said the onetime staffer, one of nearly a dozen ex-campaign and congressional employees who spoke to the Tribune on the condition of anonymity. “If I hit below 80 (mph), he was getting mad.”

As Krishnamoorthi rode in the back, making calls soliciting campaign contributions, flashing lights from a New Jersey state trooper’s vehicle appeared in the rearview mirror, the staffer recalled. Krishnamoorthi hung up as the car pulled over, and before the staffer could say anything to the trooper, Krishnamoorthi interjected.

“He says, ‘I’m a member of Congress. We’re trying to get to D.C.,’” the driver said.

The trooper quickly inspected Krishnamoorthi’s congressional identification and told them to drive the rest of the way under the speed limit, the driver said. In a brief telephone interview with the Tribune, Krishnamoorthi said he had no specific memory of the event, though he acknowledged speeding “once or twice” in the past.

The urgency portrayed that day captures a central issue in the high-profile race to replace U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin as Krishnamoorthi faces off against two-term Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton of Chicago and seven-term Rep. Robin Kelly of south suburban Lynwood. Hovering over the campaign that began nearly a year ago, Krishnamoorthi’s prowess at raising campaign cash not only gave him an early, dominant presence on Illinois airwaves but also has made him one of Washington’s most prodigious fundraisers.

Now, with millions of dollars flowing through ostensibly independent political action committees — including one, funded substantially by billionaire Gov. JB Pritzker, backing Stratton and three PACs funded at least in part by Krishnamoorthi supporters — questions about who is funding whom have moved to the fore of the Democratic race as the March 17 primary quickly approaches.

Having raised $30.5 million between the start of 2025 and Feb. 25 — including more than $19 million transferred from his House campaign fund — Krishnamoorthi is the nation’s second-highest fundraising federal candidate this election season. Only Georgia Sen. Jon Ossoff, who has brought in $63.9 million since the start of his term as he defends a swing-state seat that could help determine the balance of power in Washington, has raised more.

Opponents have argued Krishnamoorthi’s donor base has made him beholden to special interests, including supporters of Republican President Donald Trump. Some fellow members of the Indian American community, a long-standing source of his support, have criticized him for accepting contributions from figures aligned with India’s Hindu nationalist movement. And former staffers interviewed by the Tribune said collecting campaign contributions was a near-singular focus for Krishnamoorthi, who they said could be harsh with employees.

In written responses to questions from the Tribune, Krishnamoorthi pushed back on such criticism, as he has throughout the Senate campaign, vowing to “be a U.S. senator for all the people of Illinois regardless of where my support originates.” He said having received campaign contributions from 90,000 donors over the past decade allows him to “be strong in the face of attacks from the MAGA Republicans” and avoid “being beholden to any one person or special interests.”

Illinois’ fundraising leader in Congress

Krishnamoorthi’s focus on fundraising has been on display since his first political campaign, an unsuccessful 2010 Democratic primary race for Illinois comptroller. Although he lost by a percentage point, Krishnamoorthi’s campaign brought in more than $1 million.

By the start of 2025, anticipating Durbin’s impending retirement, Krishnamoorthi had stockpiled $17.1 million in his House campaign fund, almost matching the combined nearly $17.4 million the other 16 members of Illinois’ congressional delegation held in their accounts.

That gave him an enormous head start over Stratton, who has raised nearly $4.1 million since declaring her candidacy in April, and Kelly, who has brought in $3.3 million for her Senate run, nearly $2.2 million of which she transferred from her U.S. House campaign fund.

Since his first U.S. House election win in 2016, tens of thousands of people have supported his campaigns through four fundraising committees. No donor has been more loyal than Glen Tullman, CEO of health tech firm Transcarent, campaign finance records show.

Tullman — a major Democratic donor who also has supported some Republicans in the past, including former Gov. Bruce Rauner — has contributed $106,000 over the past decade across Krishnamoorthi’s four funds, including $7,000 to his Senate campaign fund, Raja for Illinois.

Tullman declined to be interviewed about his longtime support for Krishnamoorthi, which stretches back to the 2010 comptroller race.

“I support individuals who focus on practical solutions to promote economic growth, improve access to and affordability of health and care, and respect our Constitution,” Tullman said in an emailed statement.

Krishnamoorthi, a former law partner at Kirkland & Ellis, has received substantial support from individuals connected to the megafirm, where he worked from 2000 to 2007, with contributions totaling at least $1.4 million.

But perhaps the most significant factor in Krishnamoorthi’s fundraising success has been his ability to tap into a largely affluent Indian American community, whose growth and increasing political engagement — and giving — has paralleled his own rise.

Through his 2022 congressional race, roughly half of Krishnamoorthi’s campaign contributions have come from fellow Indian Americans, according to Joyojeet Pal, a professor at the University of Michigan School of Information who has analyzed the community’s political contributions.

Among the six Indian Americans in Congress, the only one who has raised a higher percentage of their campaign dollars from within the community is Michigan Rep. Shri Thanedar, a millionaire who largely self-funds his campaigns. Krishnamoorthi said in his statement that he’s grateful to have backing from his community “as they seek representation in the U.S. Senate as every other community does.”

A good deal of Krishnamoorthi’s support has come from industries in which Indian Americans are well represented. Among his top 100 donors since the 2016 race, more than a dozen come from the health care sector, while an additional dozen more come from the world of tech and tech investment, according to a Tribune review of federal campaign finance data.

A diverse group of donors

One Indian American tech donor, in particular, has become a flash point for criticism during the Senate primary campaign.

For months, Stratton has hammered Krishnamoorthi over the $29,300 he received from Shyam Sankar, chief technology officer of the artificial intelligence firm Palantir Technologies. She’s argued the contributions are evidence that the congressman is supported by powers within Trump’s Make America Great Again movement. Palantir has more than $139 million in contracts with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, including for an AI tool the Trump administration has used for its militarized immigration crackdown.

After Krishnamoorthi’s campaign told the Sun-Times that the congressman “welcomes anyone who supports” his candidacy, he later said he would donate $30,000 to three immigrant rights groups to offset Sankar’s contributions.

While the contributions from Palantir’s Sankar have become a major point of debate in the Senate campaign, less attention has been given to Krishnamoorthi’s history of drawing consistent financial support from segments of the Indian American community with ties to India’s Hindu right political movement and Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Since coming to power in 2014, Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party, or BJP, have taken an increasingly restrictive approach to the country’s large Muslim minority population.

Scattered throughout the list of Krishnamoorthi’s top contributors are several individuals affiliated with groups representing the Hindu right’s presence in the U.S., such as the Hindu American Foundation, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad of America and Overseas Friends of BJP. Such groups, which a 2025 report from the Center for Security, Race, and Rights at Rutgers University Law School described as belonging to “a transnational far-right political ideology grounded in Hindu supremacy,” are closely aligned with Modi’s political movement.

“The constituencies that support Modi are basically the constituencies that Krishnamoorthi is trying to sort of cultivate,” said Rohit Chopra, a communication professor at Santa Clara University whose research focuses on the Hindu nationalist movement and far-right online communities.

One example is Bharat Barai, a physician in northwest Indiana and Modi friend who has helped arrange large events with the prime minister, including a 2019 rally in Houston, where Krishnamoorthi attended and Modi appeared onstage with Trump.

Barai, whom Chopra described as “very much part of … the global Hindu right,” has given Krishnamoorthi’s campaign funds roughly $35,000 since the 2016 election cycle, records show. He’s also contributed to GOP groups and funds aligned with Trump.

Krishnamoorthi did not address his relationship with Barai in his responses to the Tribune but noted that Barai also had contributed to former Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and Democratic organizations.

“I have received support from an extremely diverse group of people, which includes Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Christians, and others,” Krishnamoorthi said. “I have also fought to defend the rights of all groups, whether Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Christians, non-believers, or anyone else.”

In 2018, Barai was one of the organizers of the Second World Hindu Congress, held at a hotel in west suburban Lombard.

State Sen. Ram Villivalam, a Chicago Democrat who at the time was about to become the first Indian American elected to the Illinois General Assembly, was invited to speak but refused after learning it involved Hindu nationalist elements.

Villivalam, who, like Krishnamoorthi, is Hindu, issued a statement denouncing “the participation of those extremist elements,” the state lawmaker recalled at a recent news conference where elected officials and candidates pledged not to accept campaign contributions “tied to anti-democratic, supremacist or foreign extremist agendas.”

Nevertheless, Villivalam has endorsed Krishnamoorthi’s Senate bid and defended Krishnamoorthi’s decision to appear at the 2018 event.

“He went there to convey a very specific message that Hinduism cannot be a mechanism through which we promote nationalism. … I think that’s the message he truly believes,” Villivalam said in an interview.

In response to questions about how supporters aligned with the Hindu right would influence his approach to U.S.-India relations as a senator, Krishnamoorthi said his own views “would be shaped by what is in the best interests of all Illinoisans” and that any implication he holds “‘dual loyalties’ … is, frankly, racist.”

Krishnamoorthi said he has “long made clear that strong United States-India ties are vital to both our economic and national security,” including as a bulwark against China.

“I have strongly criticized the government of India (and our own government) where they have said and done things that hurt the cause of democracy or protecting minority rights,” he said. “In addition, over the course of the last decade, I have met with foreign leaders from India, Pakistan, and other major players in the region, as is essential to my job.”

High stamina, high expectations

As Krishnamoorthi has moved headlong into amassing the largest campaign war chest of any member of Illinois’ congressional delegation, former staffers described to the Tribune a nearly round-the-clock fundraising operation in which some workers burned out after only a few months. Some former staffers said they would work 80 or 100 hours a week and were pushed to raise at least $10,000 a day or the congressman would lose his temper.

The Tribune granted the former staffers anonymity because they worried that publicly sharing their criticisms of the congressman would harm their careers.

A former staffer described a routine in which Krishnamoorthi’s finance team scoured the Federal Election Commission website for possible donors, focusing on those who’d given to high-profile lawmakers such as California’s Adam Schiff or members of Congress who shared Krishnamoorthi’s Hindu faith or Indian heritage, such as former Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, now Trump’s director of national intelligence, and California Rep. Ami Bera, a Democrat.

When calls went to a wrong number or voicemail, Krishnamoorthi swore at staffers and demanded new phone numbers, one former campaign staffer said.

In his statement, Krishnamoorthi said he didn’t recall the $10,000 daily fundraising goal, nor did he raise his voice or harshly criticize staffers.

“This can be a high-stress, high-pressure, and difficult endeavor, especially in the Trump era. I am sure I’ve gotten frustrated, but we always try to approach it as a team,” he said, noting many members of his finance team had returned to work for his campaign. Regarding allegations of a relentless schedule, he said he has tried to implement a standard five-day work week. “As for me, as most immigrants know, we have to work harder than anyone to succeed.”

Donor requests for internships for their family members also led to overcrowding in the office and logistical headaches for schedulers, one former staffer said. “It made our life difficult and to us it was a symbol of his main job was fundraising and nothing else.”

Krishnamoorthi did not address whether any of those interns were donors’ relatives, but said any implication that he was not focused on governing was untrue, noting he had near-perfect congressional attendance.

“I am proud that we have one of the most robust internship programs in the nation, and we welcome, and have always welcomed, anyone interested in interning to serve alongside our team,” he said. “I am proud to have mentored some of my former interns who have gone on to become public servants and elected officials themselves.”

While nearly a dozen former campaign and congressional staffers were critical in their comments about how they were treated by Krishnamoorthi, three other current and former campaign staffers, who also spoke on condition of anonymity, said that while Krishnamoorthi has high stamina and high expectations, they never experienced or witnessed him treating his staff unprofessionally.

“We’ve always had … a mutually respectful relationship,” said one staffer, who worked on Krishnamoorthi’s 2024 congressional campaign and returned for the Senate run. “I think that’s why he asked me to come back, and that’s why I was willing to come back.”

The job entailed long hours but nothing out of line with typical campaign work, said the three staffers, who were referred to the Tribune by the campaign.

“Somebody who goes into this job and expects, like, ‘All right, I’m going to do an 8-to-5,’ or ‘I’m going to do a 9-to-5,’ is going to be disappointed,” another current staffer said.

Big PAC spending

Heading into the final days of the campaign, the focus has shifted to the super PAC money flooding into the race.

Illinois Future PAC, flush with at least $5 million from Pritzker and another $1 million from his cousin Jennifer Pritzker, a former Trump donor who turned against the president after coming out as transgender, has reported spending an estimated $11.8 million on ads attacking Krishnamoorthi and boosting Stratton.

Illinois Future last week reported having received $100,000 from Illinois Sen. Tammy Duckworth’s Perimeter PAC, a frequent recipient of corporate money, including $7,500 in contributions in January from PACs affiliated with defense contractor General Dynamics and aircraft maintenance firm AAR Corp. Perimeter PAC also has contributed $10,000 directly to Stratton’s Juliana for Illinois campaign fund.

Stratton’s pledge not to accept corporate PAC money has been a cornerstone of her campaign. Asked how the support from Perimeter PAC comports with that promise, Stratton spokeswoman Allison Janowski said, “Juliana is not accepting corporate PAC money in her campaign, and she has upheld that commitment.”

Stratton’s campaign has claimed momentum in the final stretch, citing polls paid for by the Democratic Lieutenant Governors Association PAC, which is also a frequent recipient of corporate PAC money and direct corporate contributions. In one fundraising email, Stratton’s campaign referred to the DLGA survey as “our new poll.”

Parrying the Palantir attacks from Stratton, Krishnamoorthi’s campaign has pointed to $135,000 in contributions to the DLGA since 2019 from CoreCivic, a private prison contractor that operates immigration detention facilities. On Monday, Stratton said she has called for the DLGA to “return that funding.”

Krishnamoorthi has been getting a late boost from three outside PACs: the pro-crypto-currency group Fairshake, and The Impact Fund, an affiliate of the nonprofit Indian American Impact, and Progressive Values Illinois, a group funded by Krishnamoorthi donors.

Fairshake has spent more than $7 million in ads in Illinois alone, including nearly $5.5 million against Stratton.

Among its donors are Marc Andreessen, his firm AH Capital Management, and Ben Horowitz, the co-founder of crypto firm Andreessen Horowitz. Both are Trump supporters who’ve also given to Krishnamoorthi.

Nearly every donor to The Impact Fund, meanwhile, is a previous Krishnamoorthi supporter, including Tullman, who gave $100,000 last year, nearly matching his support for the congressman’s campaign fund over the past decade.

The fund has drawn attention and criticism for spending not only $250,000 against Stratton and $250,000 in support of Krishnamoorthi but also an equal amount in support of Kelly. It’s widely viewed as an effort to boost Krishnamoorthi’s chances by shifting support among Black voters from the lieutenant governor to the congresswoman, both of whom are Black.

Late last week, Progressive Values Illinois, whose donors include cryptocurrency and Trump Media investor Donald Wilson, reported spending more than $300,000 on mailers, two-thirds of which supported Krishnamoorthi and Kelly, and the remainder opposing Stratton.

Leigh Giangreco is a freelance reporter.