Today, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee announced the first round of candidates selected for the prestigious “Red to Blue” program that targets GOP-held districts. It's awesome that the list includes two Asian American candidates: Ami Bera who is running in CA-03 and Raj Goyle who is running in KS-04.

Thanks to his great first quarter in fundraising and a history of winning in Republican territory, Democratic candidate for Congress in Kansas 4th Congressional District and current State Senator Raj Goyle, has had his race upgraded from Safe Republican to Likely Republican by the well-respected Congressional Quarterly.  While this remains an uphill battle, the upgrade gives a glimmer of hope and could show further momentum.

It looks like this actually happened last month, but we just got this press release in our inbox today, "Indian American Political Body Launches Action Fund." Either way, it's great news with as many as five Indian Americans running for Congress this cycle. According to the release, the newly-formed political action committee has already raised $100,000 which would make it one of the largest, if not the largest, Asian American PAC in the country. Congrats to Varun and his team. Great work!

In the 2010 election cycle so far, six Asian Americans have officially announced their candidacies for Congress, not including the seven incumbents. We've reported on a few of the fundraising numbers already, but here's a handy chart that includes all their numbers for these challengers (and their key opponents) as of 9/30/2009.