Hashmi declares victory over Stoney in Democratic LG race

A Richmond-area politician appeared to win the lieutenant governor spot on Virginia’s statewide Democratic ticket in Tuesday’s elections. But it wasn’t former Mayor Levar Stoney.

State Sen. Ghazala Hashmi, D-Chesterfield, declared victory Tuesday night after an unpredictable six-way primary to earn the right to run alongside gubernatorial candidate Abigail Spanberger in the fall. 

“Tonight we've made history yet again, not just by winning this primary, but by declaring with one voice that Virginia is not going to be bullied or broken or dragged backwards by the chaos that's unfolding in Washington,” Hashmi told her supporters at an election night party in Richmond’s Fan District.

Though Hashmi appeared to come out on top according to unofficial results, an exceptionally tight finish showed Stoney within the 1% margin that allows for election recounts under Virginia law. And state Sen. Aaron Rouse, D-Virginia Beach, wasn’t far behind.

Spanberger and Democratic Party of Virginia Chairman Lamont Bagby also issued statements congratulating Hashmi on her victory, signaling that — as far as party leaders were concerned — the race was over Tuesday night.

“As a proven leader in the Virginia Senate, Senator Hashmi has passed legislation that’s delivered economic investment, improved schools, protected healthcare, and defended reproductive freedom,” Spanberger said.

At his own election watch party at a restaurant in downtown Richmond, Stoney indicated he wasn’t willing to concede just yet.

“There’s a lot of votes still left to count,” Stoney said. “We are going to wait until all the votes are counted before we say anything.”

A college educator who has represented part of the Richmond suburbs in the General Assembly since 2020, Hashmi is the first Muslim to serve in the Virginia Senate. In 2019, she ousted Republican Sen. Glen Sturtevant from a key Richmond-area district, a win that helped flip the state Senate to Democratic control.

Though Hashmi, Stoney and Rouse ran virtually neck-and-neck-and-neck statewide, Stoney ran far behind Hashmi in Richmond, the city he led for eight years as mayor. 

Hashmi’s sizable margin of victory in Richmond — where many voters said in interviews that they were opposing Stoney due the water trouble that burst into the open just after Stoney left office — may have made the difference in the statewide result.

Early results showed Hashmi winning around 58% of the Richmond vote, compared to a little less than 21% for Stoney.

Kathy Farrar, a 57-year-old phlebotomist and lab assistant who lives in Northside, said people have “had enough of Stoney.”

“You can’t tell me that they didn’t realize there was some mess going on with our water,” said Farrar, who voted for Hashmi.

John Lutz, a 38-year-old IT worker for the city who voted in the Manchester neighborhood, said he backed Hashmi because she’s “a defender of LGBTQ, BLM, bodily autonomy.” He said he respected Stoney as a mayor and liked him personally.

“But some of the things that come out recently with the water crisis and all that other stuff has kind of made me sway away from him,” Lutz said.

If the results hold, Hashmi’s general-election opponent will be Republican John Reid, a former conservative talk radio host from the Richmond area. Reid became the Republican nominee by default earlier this year after Fairfax County Supervisor Pat Herrity dropped out due to health issues. 

However, Reid’s status on the ticket has been somewhat awkward since late April after Gov. Glenn Youngkin asked him to drop out over the discovery of a racy Tumblr account that shared pornographic images. Reid denied the account was his and accused Youngkin of rushing to judgment, rallying many hard-right activists to his side but casting a cloud over a GOP ticket that was expected to run largely on continuing Youngkin’s policy agenda.

Though he initially considered a run for governor, Stoney came up short in the down-ticket contest he chose to run in after conceding he was unlikely to defeat Spanberger — a former congresswoman who got her political start in the Richmond suburbs — in a head-to-head gubernatorial primary.

In Tuesday’s primary for attorney general, former state delegate Jay Jones of Norfolk narrowly defeated Henrico County Commonwealth’s Attorney Shannon Taylor.

Though Stoney acknowledged the numbers weren’t looking good, he told his supporters “my fight will continue.”

“It doesn’t end here,” Stoney said. “We have a November election to win. We have to serve it to Donald Trump.”

In Hashmi’s election-night speech, she sounded like she was already looking ahead to the general election.

“As your next Lieutenant Governor, I will be a part of that blue brick wall that we have been building steadily ever since we flipped that state senate seat in 2019,” Hashmi said. “I'm going to be standing on the front lines to protect Virginia from extremism, and we will all be leading the charge to build something better.”

Contact Reporter Graham Moomaw at gmoomaw@richmonder.org. Victoria A. Ifatusin contributed to this report.