Manu Raju (born Feb. 9, 1980) is an American journalist who is the senior political reporter at CNN, covering the United States Congress and campaign politics. Raju is a veteran Washington reporter, having previously reported for Politico as a senior Capitol Hill correspondent and for other Washington news outlets as well.
Raju has won multiple journalism awards for his reporting on the major battles consuming Washington and his coverage of campaign politics. In 2012, Raju was part of a team of four reporters who won the White House Correspondents Association's prestigious Merriman Smith award for presidential reporting under deadline pressure for their coverage of the debt ceiling crisis. In 2015, Raju also was awarded first prize by the Society of Professional Journalists in D.C. for beat coverage of the 2014 midterm elections, and a Folio: Eddie Award for a feature profile he co-authored on Senator Elizabeth Warren.
In 2014, Raju moderated debates in two of the biggest races in the country -- for a key Senate seat in Colorado and a hotly contested governor's race there as well. He has regularly interviewed major political figures on national TV, including House Speaker Paul Ryan, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, former Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, Sen. Marco Rubio and Sen. John McCain.
Raju’s writing roots extend to his late grandfather, Gopalakrishna Adiga[1], a legendary poet from South India who wrote in the language of Kannada.
Raju was born in Darien, Illinois, the son of Dr. Tonse Raju and Mrs. Vidya Raju. He attended Hinsdale South High School and graduated in 1998. He attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison, graduating in 2002 with a degree in business administration.
Raju first started working on the assignment desk at NBC-15 in Madison, Wisconsin before moving to Washington in 2002. There, he took a job with Inside Washington Publishers, covering environmental policy. He later worked for Congressional Quarterly, The Hill newspaper and Politico, where he reported for seven years before joining CNN in 2015.[2] Before joining CNN, Raju was a regular guest on many networks and programs, including NBC’s “Meet the Press” and CBS’ “Face the Nation.” When he was hired by CNN, a Washington Post media writer called the move a "towering get" for the network.[3]
Raju has developed a reputation for finding out what politicians are discussing behind the scenes[4], and broke major stories during the 2013 government shutdown and during Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s high-profile reelection race in 2014. In 2016 for CNN, Raju was the network’s lead correspondent covering Sen. Marco Rubio’s presidential campaign, covered extensively the GOP establishment’s struggle with Donald Trump and broke big news in high-profile Senate races, including in New Hampshire.
Raju has won several awards over the years from the Society of Professional Journalists in Washington, including in 2014 when his coverage of the midterm elections won first prize during the group’s annual awards dinner. In 2012, Raju and a team of Politico reporters won the Merriman Smith award from the White House Correspondents Association for their coverage of the debt ceiling crisis that consumed Washington that year[5].
In 2015, “Washington Life” magazine named Raju as one of the city’s “movers and shakers” under the age of 40[6]. That year, he also was named as an inductee into the Hall of Fame for his high school, Hinsdale South.
