There is a fight for the state Senate in Virginia this year — even without a single seat up for election.
With a 21-19 seat majority, Democrats are promoting November’s lieutenant governor election as a linchpin to the party’s efforts to control policymaking in Richmond for the next two years. Statewide offices and the entire House, currently split 51-49 in favor of Democrats, are on the ballot this fall, while senators won’t face voters again until 2027.
With a slim Senate margin, every absence, seat vacancy and aisle-crossing vote is magnified, and it increases the likelihood that the lieutenant governor will have to cast tie-breaking votes. Democrats’ majority will be even tighter should their nominee for the office, Sen. Ghazala Hashmi (D), be elected.
“It is such a critical role that the lieutenant governor plays, especially on those issues and those legislative concerns that often are challenging to get across the floor of the Senate or onto the governor’s desk,” Hashmi said on a call with reporters organized by the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee.
While the job differs by state, lieutenant governors’ most important role in most states is being first in the line of succession should a gubernatorial vacancy occur. They also preside over senates in about half of states, according to the National Lieutenant Governors Association. And the office tends to be an electoral launchpad.
Virginia’s current lieutenant governor, Winsome Earle-Sears (R), is running for governor against former U.S. Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D).
Hashmi said the slim majority and having a Republican breaking ties this session was tough on her Democratic colleagues. Once, a member with pneumonia felt obliged to show up to vote.
“One thing that we know currently in my Senate caucus is that none of us can afford to be sick,” Hashmi said.
Earle-Sears in January voted against a bill Hashmi introduced that would have provided Virginians the right to contraception. When reconsidered with more senators in attendance, the bill was passed — though Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) then vetoed it.
Hasmi’s opponent in November, talk radio host John Reid (R), was asked last month how he would vote if a tie arose on constitutional amendments put forth by Democrats this year to provide the right to an abortion, automatically restore voting rights to people who complete felony sentences, and remove a prohibition on same-sex marriage.
Reid said the Democratic proposals were too extreme but he was interested in discussing the issues to try to find common ground.
“It’s no, no, no from me on all three,” Reid said of the Democratic amendments, which the legislature passed this year and must be passed again next year before they can be placed on the ballot.
Hashmi held a significant fundraising lead over Reid, with nearly $1.8 million raised as of June 5 to Reid’s just over $300,000.
Democrats are aiming to increase donors’ awareness about the importance of the race. The DLCC included the race in the Virginia target map it released in April and last week named Hashmi a “spotlight candidate.”
The DLCC, which seeks to elect more Democrats to state legislatures, is increasingly looking beyond legislative races, like those for lieutenant governor and state supreme courts, to give the party a better chance of enacting its priorities in the states.
“We really play this out and think about the power of the legislature and how we can ensure that we are maximizing it,” Heather Williams, the DLCC’s president, said on the call. “Sometimes that has us at DLCC looking at lieutenant governors, it has us looking at state supreme court races, it has us looking at these markers of power in state legislatures to ensure that we are maximizing opportunities for Democrats.”
On the call last week, Hashmi sought to paint Reid as too extreme on abortion. The Virginia senator and two other Democrats on the call — Dels. Nadarius Clark and Lindsey Dougherty, who are running for the 84th House district in Hampton Roads and the 75th House district south of Richmond — also tied their opponents to President Trump, the federal workforce cuts and the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
The Republican State Leadership Committee, which seeks to elect more Republicans to state legislatures, dismissed the comments.
“Virginia Democrats are not serious about creating a better future for the Commonwealth,” Mason Di Palma, the RSLC’s communications director, said in a statement. “If they were, they would have actively collaborated with Republicans in the last session to pass tax cuts and implement measures to strengthen community safety. Virginians know that full Democrat control in Richmond would be a disaster to the Commonwealth.”