Ghazala Hashmi
Ghazala Hashmi is an American politician, academic administrator, and educator who is the lieutenant governor-elect of Virginia. A member of the Democratic Party, she has served as a Virginia state senator for the fifteenth district since 2020. She is the first Asian-American and Muslim elected to statewide office in Virginia, along with being the first Muslim woman to win statewide office anywhere in the United States. Born in India and raised in Georgia, Hashmi earned a PhD in English from Emory University. In 2019, she was elected to the Virginia General Assembly and re-elected in 2023. As the Democratic nominee in the 2025 Virginia lieutenant gubernatorial election, Hashmi defeated Republican nominee John Reid by a margin of 11 percentage points.
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Shenandoah Interviews State Senator Ghazala Hashmi
In 2019, Ghazala Hashmi, a former English professor, became the first ever Muslim and Indian American State Senator in Virginia. In another historic feat, she won the Democratic nomination for Lieutenant Governor in June 2025 and will appear on the ballot for the statewide election this coming November. Shenandoah’s Special Features Editor, Nadeen Kharputly, sat down with Senator Hashmi for a conversation about her early life, her career in education, her transition to a political career, and how literature has shaped her life—and her desire to make life better for her constituents.