Indian-origin Democrat Ghazala Hashmi has been elected as Virginia’s new Lieutenant Governor, defeating Republican candidate John Reid in a closely contested race.
Hashmi, who represents the 15th Senatorial District, is the first Muslim and South Asian American to serve in the Virginia Senate. Her victory means her Senate seat will now be filled through a special election.
Hashmi’s political journey began in 2019 when she made history by flipping a Republican-held state Senate seat, earning her place in the Virginia General Assembly. Her win was described as one of the most significant upsets of that election cycle.
In 2024, she was appointed Chair of the Senate Education and Health Committee, a leadership position central to advancing two of the Democratic Party’s key priorities: reproductive freedom and public education.
According to details available on her official website, Hashmi has “dedicated her efforts to improving the lives of others,” with her work focusing on issues of inequity across housing, education, healthcare, and environmental justice.
Born in Hyderabad in 1964 to Zia Hashmi and Tanveer Hashmi, Ghazala spent her early childhood at her maternal grandparents’ home in Malakpet. She was four years old when she emigrated to the United States with her mother and elder brother to join her father in Georgia.
Her father, Professor Zia Hashmi, is an alumnus of Aligarh Muslim University, where he completed his MA and LLB before earning a PhD in International Relations from the University of South Carolina.
He went on to become a university professor and later retired as the Director of the Centre for International Studies, which he founded. Her mother, Tanveer Hashmi, holds a BA and B.Ed degree from Osmania University’s Women’s College in Kothi.
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Hashmi excelled academically, graduating as the valedictorian of her high school class and earning multiple scholarships and fellowships. She obtained her BA with honours from Georgia Southern University and completed her PhD in American Literature from Emory University in Atlanta.
In 1991, she moved to the Richmond area with her husband, Azhar Rafiq. The couple have two daughters, Yasmin and Noor, both of whom attended Chesterfield County Public Schools and later graduated from the University of Virginia.
Before entering politics, Hashmi spent nearly three decades in academia. She taught at the University of Richmond before joining Reynolds Community College, where she also served as the Founding Director of the Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETL).
Hashmi’s rise from an immigrant child in Georgia to Virginia’s Lieutenant Governor marks a milestone in the state’s political history and serves as an inspiration to Indian-Americans and women of colour across the United States.
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