This article documents a current election. Information may change rapidly as the election progresses until official results have been published. Initial news reports may be unreliable, and the last updates to this article may not reflect the most current information. |
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| Reporting | as of Nov. 4, 20:55 EDT | ||||||||||||||||
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Hashmi: 50–60% 60–70% 70–80% 80–90% Reid: 50–60% 60–70% 70–80% 80–90% | |||||||||||||||||
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| Elections in Virginia |
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The 2025 Virginia lieutenant gubernatorial election was held on November 4, 2025, to elect the lieutenant governor of Virginia. The incumbent Republican lieutenant governor, Winsome Earle-Sears, did not run for a second term in office, instead chose to run for governor. Primary elections took place on June 17, 2025. [1] The in-person early voting period ran from September 19 to November 1, 2025. [2] Hashmi won the general election and will take office on January 17th, 2026.
The Republican nominee was former WRVA radio host John Reid, [3] who would have been Virginia's first openly gay lieutenant governor if elected. [4] The Democratic nominee was state senator Ghazala Hashmi, who will be Virginia's first Asian and Muslim lieutenant governor. [5] She will also be the first Muslim woman elected to statewide office in US history.
In September 2024, incumbent Lieutenant Governor Winsome Earle-Sears announced her candidacy for Governor of Virginia. [6] In January 2025, Fairfax County supervisor Pat Herrity and radio host John Reid announced their candidacies for the Republican nomination for lieutenant governor. [7] [8]
On April 21, after the filing deadline, Herrity announced his withdrawal from the race due to health reasons. [9] This made Reid the Republican nominee by default. [9] Four days later, The Richmonder reported that Governor Glenn Youngkin, also a Republican, had asked Reid to withdraw from the race, citing sexually explicit images and posts on a page on the microblogging platform Tumblr which had a username that matched the name Reid uses on other social media accounts. [10] Reid denied making the posts and pledged to remain in the race, arguing the effort to remove him from the ticket was due to his sexual orientation. Reid is Virginia's first openly gay candidate from either the Democratic Party or the Republican Party for statewide office. [11] [12]
Following backlash from within the Republican Party, Youngkin stated he would "support the nominees and their ticket". [12] Youngkin staffer Matt Moran, whom Reid's campaign accused of being behind the effort to remove him from the ticket, resigned as a result of the controversy. [13] [14]
John Curran, a business consultant from James City County, did not qualify for the ballot. Following this, Curran filed as a write-in candidate for the general election and said "I decided to give the voters an option. It's a hard option for me because people actually have to know how to spell your name and write it in. If Virginia wants me, they'll do it." [15]
Statewide officials
Six candidates appeared on the ballot for the Democratic primary. [21] Prior to the election, the race was viewed to have three favored frontrunners: state senators Ghazala Hashmi and Aaron Rouse, along with former Richmond mayor Levar Stoney. [22] In a very tight race between the three, Hashmi narrowly secured the nomination over Stoney and Rouse. [23]
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Individuals
| Poll source | Date(s) administered | Sample size [a] | Margin of error | Ghazala Hashmi | Babur Lateef | Aaron Rouse | Levar Stoney | Other | Undecided |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Garin-Hart-Yang (D) [51] [A] | February 25 – March 1, 2025 | 600 (LV) | ± 4% | 8% | 2% | 10% | 16% | — | 63% |
| GBAO (D) [52] [B] | March 24–27, 2025 | 600 (LV) | ± 4% | 13% | 2% | 15% | 15% | 3% | 46% |
| No. | Date | Host | Moderator | Link | Democratic | Democratic | Democratic | Democratic | Democratic | Democratic |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Key: P Participant A Absent N Not invited I Invited W Withdrawn | ||||||||||
| Bastani | Hashmi | Lateef | Rouse | Salgado | Stoney | |||||
| 1 | May 22, 2025 | WJLA-TV | Kellye Lynn | [53] | P | P | P | P | P | P |
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Democratic | Ghazala Hashmi | 136,717 | 27.50% | |
| Democratic | Levar Stoney | 131,765 | 26.50% | |
| Democratic | Aaron Rouse | 130,485 | 26.25% | |
| Democratic | Babur Lateef | 42,099 | 8.47% | |
| Democratic | Alex Bastani | 28,476 | 5.73% | |
| Democratic | Victor Salgado | 27,593 | 5.55% | |
| Total votes | 497,135 | 100.00% | ||
Ghazala Hashmi, the Democratic nominee, had declined to participate in a debate with John Reid, the Republican nominee. [56] No debates had been held for lieutenant governor at the previous 2021 election. [56] In response, Reid held a 40-minute debate without the involvement of Hashmi. [56] [57] Hashmi was represented by a computer monitor depicting her face, with responses delivered via artificial intelligence speech synthesis. [57] The Reid campaign stated the responses delivered through speech synthesis were compiled and written by the Reid campaign, through information from interviews and Hashmi's website. The Virginian-Pilot noted that the on-screen attribution for the statements delivered occasionally listed far-right websites such as The Gateway Pundit . [57] Noah Jennings, Reid's campaign manager, stated that they had aimed for a debate that was "fair and accurate to [Hashmi], not campy and overdramatic", while Ava Pitruzzello, a spokesperson for the Hashmi campaign, called it a "failed use of deepfakes" that was "desperate" and "straight out of Donald Trump’s playbook". [56]
| Source | Ranking | As of |
|---|---|---|
| State Navigate [58] | Likely D (flip) | August 15, 2025 |
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Aggregate polls
| Source of poll aggregation | Dates administered | Dates updated | John Reid (R) | Ghazala Hashmi (D) | Other/Undecided [b] | Margin |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Decision Desk HQ [76] | through November 3, 2025 | November 4, 2025 | 44.3% | 48.9% | 6.8% | Hashmi +4.6% |
| Poll source | Date(s) administered | Sample size [a] | Margin of error | John Reid (R) | Ghazala Hashmi (D) | Other | Undecided |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Quantus Insights (R) [77] | November 3, 2025 | 1,069 (LV) | ± 2.7% | 44% | 52% | 1% | 3% |
| The Trafalgar Group (R) [78] | November 1–2, 2025 | 1,057 (LV) | ± 2.9% | 46% | 48% | – | 6% |
| Echelon Insights [79] | October 28–31, 2025 | 606 (LV) | ± 4.7% | 46% | 49% | – | 5% |
| AtlasIntel [80] | October 25–30, 2025 | 1,325 (LV) | ± 3.0% | 46% | 52% | 1% [c] | 1% |
| SoCal Strategies (R) [81] [C] | October 28–29, 2025 | 800 (LV) | – | 45% | 47% | – | 8% |
| State Navigate [82] | October 26–28, 2025 | 614 (LV) | ± 4.0% | 41% | 53% | – | 6% |
| Roanoke College [83] | October 22–27, 2025 | 1,041 (LV) | ± 4.1% | 40% | 42% | 4% [d] | 14% |
| A2 Insights [84] | October 24–26, 2025 | 776 (LV) | – | 45% | 53% | – | 2% |
| Christopher Newport University [85] | October 21–23, 2025 | 803 (LV) | ± 4.1% | 45% | 47% | 1% | 7% |
| Suffolk University [86] | October 19–21, 2025 | 500 (LV) | ± 4.4% | 45% | 45% | 2% [e] | 8% |
| State Navigate [87] | October 17–20, 2025 | 694 (LV) | ± 4.0% | 42% | 53% | – | 5% |
| The Washington Post/Schar School [88] | October 16–20, 2025 | 927 (LV) | ± 3.5% | 44% | 51% | 3% [f] | 2% |
| 927 (RV) | 42% | 48% | 8% [g] | 2% | |||
| Quantus Insights (R) [89] | October 19–20, 2025 | 1,302 (RV) | ± 2.8% | 45% | 49% | 1% | 5% |
| Kaplan Strategies (R) [90] | October 16–18, 2025 | 556 (LV) | ± 4.2% | 41% | 48% | – | 11% |
| co/efficient (R) [91] | October 15–17, 2025 | 937 (LV) | ± 3.2% | 42% | 47% | – | 11% |
| Clarity Campaign Labs (D) [92] [D] | October 14–17, 2025 | 958 (RV) | ± 3.2% | 44% | 48% | – | 8% |
| The Trafalgar Group/InsiderAdvantage (R) [93] | October 13–15, 2025 | 1,039 (LV) | ± 2.9% | 46% | 46% | – | 8% |
| Virginia Commonwealth University [94] | October 6–14, 2025 | 842 (A) | ± 4.0% | 43% | 44% | – | 13% |
| The Trafalgar Group (R) [95] | October 8–10, 2025 | 1,034 (LV) | ± 2.9% | 46% | 47% | – | 7% |
| Christopher Newport University [96] | September 29 – October 1, 2025 | 805 (RV) | ± 3.9% | 39% | 48% | – | 12% |
| The Trafalgar Group (R) [97] | September 29 – October 1, 2025 | 1,034 (LV) | ± 2.9% | 44% | 48% | – | 8% |
| The Washington Post/Schar School [98] | September 25–29, 2025 | 1,002 (LV) | ± 3.4% | 45% | 49% | 2% [h] | 3% |
| 1,002 (RV) | 42% | 47% | 6% [i] | 4% | |||
| A2 Insights [99] | September 16–28, 2025 | 771 (LV) | – | 44% | 49% | 1% [j] | 6% |
| Christopher Newport University [100] | September 8–14, 2025 | 808 (RV) | ± 3.9% | 37% | 48% | – | 15% |
| Pulse Decision Science (R) [101] [E] | September 3–5, 2025 | 512 (LV) | ± 4.4% | 45% | 42% | – | 13% |
| Virginia Commonwealth University [102] | August 18–28, 2025 | 804 (A) | ± 4.1% | 41% | 45% | – | 14% |
| SoCal Strategies (R) [103] [F] | August 31 – September 1, 2025 | 700 (LV) | – | 41% | 46% | – | 14% |
| co/efficient (R) [104] | August 23–26, 2025 | 1,025 (LV) | ± 3.1% | 43% | 43% | – | 14% |
| Roanoke College [105] [106] | August 11–15, 2025 | 702 (LV) | ± 4.3% | 35% | 38% | – | 27% |
| American Directions Research Group/AARP [107] | June 25 – July 8, 2025 | 1,001 (LV) | ± 3.1% | 32% | 47% | 9% [k] | 12% |
| Virginia Commonwealth University [108] | June 19 – July 3, 2025 | 764 (RV) | ± 4.2% | 36% | 45% | 4% [l] | 15% |
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republican | John Reid | ||||
| Democratic | Ghazala Hashmi | ||||
| Total votes | |||||
| Turnout | |||||
| Registered electors | |||||
| Democratic gain from Republican | |||||
| District | Reid | Hashmi | Representative |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1st | Rob Wittman | ||
| 2nd | Jen Kiggans | ||
| 3rd | Bobby Scott | ||
| 4th | Jennifer McClellan | ||
| 5th | John McGuire | ||
| 6th | Ben Cline | ||
| 7th | Eugene Vindman | ||
| 8th | Don Beyer | ||
| 9th | Morgan Griffith | ||
| 10th | Suhas Subramanyam | ||
| 11th | James Walkinshaw |
Partisan clients
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)The Republican Party of Virginia has not yet announced which candidates made the ballot for lieutenant governor. The party said Saturday that Fairfax supervisor Pat Herrity is in and James City County businessman John Curran is out.
Official campaign websites