November 4 proved to be a significant moment for South Asian political representation in the United States.

Dominating the headlines in the subcontinent was Zohran Mamdani, the son of parents born in India, who won the New York City mayoral election.

But hours before, over 660 km south of New York, Indian-born Ghazala Hashmi was voted in as the Lieutenant Governor of Virginia, the office that presides over the state senate.

Also on Tuesday, Aftab Karma Singh Pureval, an attorney born to an Indian father and Tibetan mother, won a second term as mayor of the city of Cincinnati in Ohio.

Their victories are an indication of the diversity and rising political consciousness of the 5.4 million Americans of Indian descent, who make up 1.6% of the country’s population.

On Tuesday, when 61-year-old Hashmi won her election, she became the Muslim and South Asian to be elected Lieutenant Governor of Virginia.

The daughter of a professor and educator, Hyderabad-born Hashmi immigrated to Georgia with her family when she was four.

“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 Virginia and in the entire country – is only possible because of the depth and the breadth of opportunities made available in this country and in this commonwealth,” said Hashmi soon after the results were announced. “Together, we have carved a new historic path”.

Hashmi was an English professor but decided to join politics when US President Donald Trump passed a series of executive orders in 2017 during his first presidency known colloquially as the “Muslim ban”. It banned Syrian refugees from the US and imposed a 90-day travel ban on anyone from Yemen, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Syria.

Amnesty International, the global human rights’ organisation, called the ban “cruel, inhumane, and a violation of international law”.

In 2020, Hashmi became a state senator in Virginia. She was the first Muslim woman to be elected to the senate. Five years later, she ran again – now for the position of the second-in-command to the state governor. Her opponent was Republican candidate John Reid.

To those following her campaign closely, her policies focused less on her identity this time. It hinged more around public health and education issues. But her identity, some analysts have said, was still a prominent factor.

Her opponent, for one, made references to it frequently. Less than a week before the elections, Reid took to X to equate Hashmi with New York City mayoral candidate, Mamdani.

“Radical Mamdani in NYC and Ghazala in Virginia,” read the post with a 48-second video. “Yes, the same leftists are pushing them both! Reject socialism and the radical Islamists backing the Democrats. Last chance to save Virginia”.

Hashmi won the election by a margin of over 388,000 votes.

The 43-year-old Aftab Pureval, a former special assistant US attorney, entered politics in 2016, winning the election for Hamilton County Clerk of Courts and breaking a century-long Republican hold on the office. He focused on access to legal aid, reducing fees for working families and transparency.

His opponent, Cory Bowman, is US Vice President JD Vance’s half-brother.

In 2021, Pureval was elected Cincinnati’s first Asian-American mayor, running on a platform of inclusive growth and community investment. Four years later, in 2025, he secured re-election by a landslide, defeating his Republican opponent, Cory Bowman, with roughly 78% of the vote.

During his first term, the mayor of Ohio’s biggest metropolitan prioritised affordable housing, police recruitment, youth safety, and green infrastructure to make Cincinnati more sustainable and equitable.

“Progress must work for every neighborhood, not just downtown,” he said throughout his campaign.

On election night, addressing cheering supporters, he called the victory “a mandate for unity, pragmatism, and compassion”.

In New York City, just after 10.30 pm on Tuesday, crowds erupted in cheers, embraces, and tears as the Associated Press confirmed the city’s next mayor-to-be, 34-year-old Zohran Mamdani.

In the Astoria neighbourhood, which Mamdani represented in the New York state assembly, watch parties overflowed. Supporters danced on top of tables in restaurants. People on the pavements chanted Mamdani’s name. Cars stopped to join the celebrations.

The Kampala-born son of filmmaker Mira Nair and academic Mahmood Mamdani, Zohran Mamdani ran a campaign in which he promised to make the city more affordable. He is a self-professed democratic socialist.

He moved to the US when he was seven.

“New York will remain a city of immigrants, a city built by immigrants, powered by immigrants,” Mamdani said in his first speech, addressing a crowd of hundreds in downtown Brooklyn. “And as of tonight, led by an immigrant”.

In his victory speech, he quoted India’s first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru and as he concluded, the title track from the 2004 Bollywood film Dhoom washed over the venue.

Aftab Pureval won reelection as mayor of Cincinnati on Tuesday, defeating Cory Bowman, a Republican who is Vice President JD Vance’s half-brother.

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