RICHMOND, USA (Kashmir English): Ghazala Hashmi has won the Virginia lieutenant governor’s race, becoming first Muslim woman elected statewide.
Democrat Ghazala Hashmi was declared the winner of the Virginia lieutenant governor’s race in Richmond, Virginia, on Tuesday.
Hashmi defeated Republican John Reid, a former conservative talk show host and the state’s first gay statewide nominee.
As lieutenant governor, Hashmi will preside over the state Senate and be able to cast a tie-breaking vote.
The Vice President only votes when the rest of the Senate is evenly split (a tie).
The role could be crucial because with Hashmi’s seat vacant, Democrats will have a narrow 20-19 advantage with Hashmi leaving the Senate.
Hashmi is also Virginia’s first Indian American elected statewide.
As an experienced educator and advocate of inclusive values and social justice, her legislative priorities include public education, voting rights and the preservation of democracy, reproductive freedom, gun violence prevention, the environment, housing, and affordable healthcare access.
As a four-year-old, Ghazala Hashmi emigrated with her mother and older brother from India to the United States to join her father in Georgia just as he was completing his PhD in international relations and beginning his university teaching career.
She grew up in that small college town, at a time when public schools were being desegregated. Due to that she saw firsthand how communities can be built and dialogue promoted through intentional efforts to bridge cultural, racial, and socioeconomic divides.
After graduating, Ghazala earned a BA with honors from Georgia Southern University and her PhD in American literature from Emory University in Atlanta.
Ghazala Hashmi
Newlyweds Ghazala and her husband, Azhar, moved to the Richmond area in 1991, and she spent nearly 30 years as a professor, first teaching at the University of Richmond and then at Reynolds Community College.
She and Azhar have two adult daughters who both graduated from Chesterfield County Public Schools and the University of Virginia.
As a state Senator, Ghazala has dedicated her efforts to improving the lives of others, focusing on issues of inequity in housing, education, health care, environmental justice, and much more.
Ghazala Firdous Hashmi is an India-born American politician who is the lieutenant governor-elect of Virginia. As member of the Democratic Party, she served as a Virginia state senator for the 15th district since 2020.
