Democrat Ghazala Hashmi will win the Virginia lieutenant governor’s race and change into the nation’s first Muslim girl elected to statewide workplace, NCS projects.
Hashmi will defeat Republican John Reid, a former conservative speak present host and the state’s first homosexual statewide nominee. As lieutenant governor, she is going to preside over the state Senate and have the ability to break ties within the chamber. The function may very well be essential as a result of together with her seat vacant, Democrats can have a slim 20-19 benefit with Hashmi leaving the Senate.
A Richmond-area state senator who helped flip the chamber in 2019, Hashmi campaigned on guarantees to face as much as the Trump administration.
She can be Virginia’s first Indian American elected statewide.
Virginia is certainly one of 17 states the place lieutenant governors are elected individually from governors, although it’s been 20 years since totally different events gained the workplaces.
Lieutenant governors – together with present Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears – have used the place as a springboard for gubernatorial campaigns in a state the place governors are barred from serving consecutive phrases.
Hashmi defeated 5 major challengers in June, narrowly successful the nomination with 28% of the vote.
She’s since campaigned with the others on the Democratic ticket, gubernatorial candidate Abigail Spanberger and candidate for lawyer basic Jay Jones. After news of Jones’ violent textual content messages broke, she condemned the messages however like most different Democrats stopped wanting telling him to drop out.
She largely ignored her opponent’s common assaults and accusations that she was ducking debates with him. The two by no means met in a face-to-face moderated debate, prompting Reid to debate an AI representation of her in October.
Elected in 2019 to the state senate, Hashmi defeated a Republican incumbent and helped flip the chamber, turning into the chamber’s first Muslim and Indian American within the course of.
In that first marketing campaign, she cited the primary Trump administration’s Muslim ban as a motivator to run for workplace.
Reid made cultural points round schooling and transgender college students central to his marketing campaign, enjoying off Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s success on a mother and father’ rights platform. He additionally introduced a plan to assist laid-off federal employees and promised to protect Virginia’s so-called Right to Work regulation prohibiting workplaces from requiring their workers to affix their union. While Reid has supported President Donald Trump, he by no means obtained Trump’s endorsement.