With a Democrat governor, lieutenant governor, and attorney general, Virginia only needs to flip just two seats Tuesday, November 5 in each chamber of the General Assembly to make the former red, Confederate stronghold jet blue.  In 2017, Republicans (GOP) won the majority by razor-thin margins, so thin that one race was determined by drawing a name from a bowl. That tiebreaker tipped the House of Delegates, the lower chamber, in the GOP’s favor.  

In 2017, the election brought many first to Virginia and the nation including its first openly transgender, Asian-American woman, and first Latina women in the House of Delegates - - all Democrats. In 2019, Democrats are running 35 non-Whites in the House, including 24 candidates who identify as African American.

Democratic candidates include Sheila Bynum-Coleman, who could become the first Black woman to defeat a sitting House speaker in any state legislature in U.S. history. Ghazala Hashmi and Qasim Rashid hope to become the first Muslims in the Senate, there are two in the lower chamber.

Hashmi is running against a Republican incumbent, Glen Sturtevant, who narrowly won a Democratic-leaning district four years ago. Hashmi would also become the first Muslim woman ever elected to the Virginia state legislature.

Rashid told Port Of Harlem that he is an advocate for felony enfranchisement and economic freedom.  “The former slaves were freed, but not economically freed. The powers of Jim Crow put Blacks back into economic slavery and that continues through housing discrimination, employment, salaries, education, health care, and more.”

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“If we have a strong turnout from Black voters, then we win the election.”

- Senate Candidate Qasim Rashid

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The Pakistan native, who is running in a district where about 15 percent of the population descends from enslaved Africans, added, “If we have a strong turnout from Black voters, then we win the election.”

There are two Black Republicans running for the House of Delegates including D.J. Jordan who is trying to unseat Peruvian-American Elizabeth Guzman.  He told NPR, “I think the Republican Party here realizes that they cannot win another statewide election without doing better in the African American community.”  The Virginia legislature has hosted just two Black Republicans since Reconstruction, and none since 2004.