US: Ghazala Hashmi becomes first Muslim woman to serve as lieutenant governor

While mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani's historic, record-breaking win in New York City swept the headlines on Tuesday, he wasn't the only Muslim immigrant of Indian origin to be elected to high office.

 In Virginia, state Senator Ghazala Hashmi won her bid to become the second most powerful woman in the state. She will also be the first Muslim to win the office of lieutenant governor in the entire country.

Hashmi came to the US from Hyderabad, India, at the age of four, and in 2019, after two decades in academia, became the first Muslim state senator in Virginia.

She will now be sworn in as lieutenant governor on 17 January, when she becomes deputy to Virginia's first female governor, former CIA officer and Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger.

Spanberger handily beat her Republican opponent on Tuesday in one of the first races to be called in the country, and one that was widely considered to be a rebuke of US President Donald Trump's policies.

Both Spanberger and Hashmi are Democrats, and in Virginia, the lieutenant governor is elected separately rather than running on a joint gubernatorial ticket. 

Ken Martin, chair of the Democratic National Committee - which oversees party operations nationwide - said in a statement that Hashmi "ran a brilliantly focused campaign all about lowering costs, growing Virginia’s economy, and ensuring our kids have access to high-quality child care and education".

"Democrats like Governor-elect Abigail Spanberger and Lieutenant Governor-elect Ghazala Hashmi are standing up to Trump and fighting for Virginia’s families," Martin said.

"Make no mistake: Tonight’s victory is part of a larger trend of Democratic victories and overperformances, and that should terrify Donald Trump," Martin added.

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But Haris Tarin, vice president of policy and programming at the Muslim Public Affairs Council, told Middle East Eye that focusing on what matters to everyday people is far more impactful than just being the antithesis to Trump.

"It was a campaign of affordability, housing, cost of living," he said. 

Tarin says that Hashmi, much like Mamdani, did not run an "anti-Trump campaign". "She ran a campaign of issues impacting Virginia," Tarin said. 

That, Tarin insisted, was the real key to her success.

"Anti-Muslim sentiment and Islamophobia have been used as a tool in elections - as a weapon - since 2001... and the fear mongering was actually successful in many, many cases around the country," he added.

Tarin says that now the issues are different and people have had enough.

"We don't want to be fear-mongered. We're going to go with the candidate who has the best message." 

In her own victory speech on Tuesday, Hashmi reflected on defying the odds in a political landscape that is rapidly changing. 

"My own journey from a young child landing at the airport in Savannah [Georgia], to now being elected as the first Muslim woman to achieve statewide office... in the entire country, [this] was possible because of the depth and the breadth of the opportunities made available in this country and in this commonwealth," she said. 

'Together, we have carved a new historic path."

Three Muslims win in Michigan

Three Muslim Americans won mayoral races in largely Arab American populated suburbs of Detroit, Michigan, on Tuesday.

Two of those races were to replace Muslim mayors whom Trump had handpicked to be his ambassadors to Muslim countries.

In Dearborn Heights, city council chair Mo Baydoun was officially elected mayor after being initially selected to fill the open seat in October, which was vacated by Bill Bazzi, who is now the US ambassador to Tunisia.  

Baydoun received 68 percent of the vote to opponent Denise Malinowski Maxwell's 32 percent.  Maxwell was previously defeated in 2021 by Bazzi.

Baydoun is a Wayne County sheriff reserve officer and made safety a key part of his platform, the Arab American News reported. 

"This isn’t just a campaign for me," he said when he launched his campaign in July.

"It’s personal. I’ve spent my life here, and I’ve worked hard to serve this city with honesty and commitment. I want to keep building something positive for all of us."

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Next door in Dearborn, mayor Abdullah Hammoud was easily re-elected to a second term with more than 71 percent of the vote compared to his opponent Nagi Almudhegi's 28 percent.

Hammoud most famously made headlines when, despite very much identifying as a Democrat, he refused to endorse former President Joe Biden or his successor Kamala Harris for the 2024 presidential election, owing to Biden's unconditional support for Israel's wars on Gaza and Lebanon.

The Biden administration's refusal to pressure the Israelis to adhere to a ceasefire deal also cost the Democrats their Yemeni-born Muslim mayor in Hamtramck, which is just a 15-minute drive from Dearborn. 

Last year, Amer Ghalib became the first Muslim elected to office to formally endorse Trump for president. In return, Trump appointed him the ambassador to Kuwait, but Ghalib has come under fire from pro-Israel groups for his critical social media comments, many from his time as a private citizen. 

While he appeared to be earnest in his Senate confirmation hearing, he did not provide the answers senators wanted to hear. His confirmation remains in limbo. 

Ghalib's term ends in January, and the two men vying to replace him had just eleven votes between them as of Wednesday. However, another Yemeni American, Adam Alharbi, is now set to be the mayor-elect of Hamtramck, as per his own declaration on Facebook.

The city clerk, however, may still decide on a recount due to how tight the margin is. 

Alharbi is an engineer by trade and was Ghalib's campaign manager. Like his old boss, he is also a supporter of Trump, the Detroit Free Press reported. 

The 'Mamdani of Minnesota'

In Minnesota, Omar Fateh, the so-called "Mamdani of Minneapolis," lost the final round of counting to the incumbent, Democrat Jacob Frey, who saw the city through the police killing of George Floyd in 2020 and the subsequent protests.

Fateh is a Muslim, Somali-American, Democratic Socialist who currently serves as a state senator.  

Minneapolis has a ranked-choice ballot, meaning candidates with the fewest votes get eliminated in each round until someone clears the 50 percent-plus-one vote threshold. 

Fateh launched his mayoral run in December 2024, but began facing a deluge of racist abuse in July when the now-assassinated conservative activist Charlie Kirk, the founder and president of the non-profit organisation, Turning Point USA, wrote on X that "Muslims [are] commanded to take over the government in the land they live."

"The attempted Islamic takeover of America is made possible thanks to mass migration," Kirk said in the same post.

Several conservative social media users then began attacking Fateh's mayoral bid, with some asking, "how can we send them [Somalis] BACK?"

"We need to be writing an extensive paper showing just how it came to be that there are thousands and thousands of Somalis in Minnesota," one post on X with nearly nine thousand likes read. "Who are these people? How did they get there? Who funded it? And most importantly - how can we send them BACK." 

Fateh took to his personal X account to respond.

"Minneapolis is a beautifully diverse city that stands firm in our progressive values," he wrote. "The hate I’ve seen today - and most days - is not who we will ever be."

MEE asked the nonpartisan organisation Muslims in Public Service (MAPS), which provides the resources and support for Muslim Americans to run for elected office, whether the torrent of anti-Muslim abuse thrown at candidates has discouraged Muslim Americans from launching campaigns.

"It's still acceptable to smear Muslims," MAPS chair Ahmad Maaty said.

"Public servants have [had] to learn to navigate by keeping their heads down, and they come to expect this, and it's just par for the course." 

But now, he added, thanks to Mamdani's "unapologetic" approach in particular and his victory in the largest and most influential city in the country, the Muslim-American community is on the cusp of bolder change.

"It's something that many of us feel is a rite of passage, and almost a price of citizenship, being able to serve this country in some capacity or another," Maaty told MEE. 

"Stay the course if you have the courage to run, and to put your life on hold, and to lead with conviction for the betterment of your communities."