GEOFF BENNETT: And let's hear now from one of last night's winners.

William Brangham spoke earlier today with the winner of Virginia's race for lieutenant governor about the issues that fueled her victory and those that powered Democratic gains across the country.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Last night, State Senator Ghazala Hashmi defeated former conservative talk radio host Republican John Reid.

And she will assume the second in command position in Virginia next year.

Lieutenant Governor-Elect, congratulations on your victory last night.

And thank you so much for being here on the program.

GHAZALA HASHMI (D-VA), Lieutenant Governor-Elect: Well, thank you so much.

Delighted to join you.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: In your victory speech last night, you talked about the challenges that Virginia faces, mentioning that some of those, you argued, were generations-old challenges.

What do you see as the biggest issues facing your state going forward?

GHAZALA HASHMI: Well, the immediate challenges that we are facing here in Virginia are really compounded by what's happening in Washington these days.

Virginia is home to tens of thousands of federal employees.

And the DOGE cuts that have started since January of this year have had a massive impact on so many Virginians.

Those loss of jobs have impacted the economy of Northern Virginia, but, most importantly, they have seriously impacted the lives of so many of our citizens.

And on top of that now, we have the compounding crisis of the federal shutdown, which is creating many hardships for those same families, but also accelerating the issues that we are seeing on a variety of issues, whether it's health care access, the cuts to SNAP benefits, and many of our issues around rising costs.

So those are the immediate concerns that we're facing here in Virginia.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: A lot of the narrative about your victory in Virginia and other Democrats around the country was that this was a repudiation of the Trump administration.

What do you make of that analysis?

GHAZALA HASHMI: I think, for us here in the commonwealth, that's certainly a very important part of it.

Donald Trump's policies are not popular, most especially because of the critical harms that we have seen on the ground here.

Our candidates, and myself included, we ran on the issues that are impacting Virginia's families.

I have been talking to constituents and Virginians for the past 20 months.

The cost of health care has been going up, the lack of access to affordable housing, the compounding crises of losing jobs and facing issues of concern around childcare.

All of these concerns have really been part of the conversations I have been having.

By contrast, our opponents ran on messages of bigotry, xenophobia, scapegoating.

That's not a winning message.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Your new governor, Abigail Spanberger, told us before the election that, when we asked her about working with the Trump administration, she said that she didn't really foresee a way to do that, likening it to working with the arsonist who just burned down the building.

How do you see the role, your role, of working with the administration in Washington?

GHAZALA HASHMI: Well, one thing we have seen across states that have Democratic leadership is the opportunity to build coalitions and to respond to the unconstitutional actions and the direct attacks that we see coming out of the Trump White House.

And now that we are moving into Democratic leadership here in Virginia at the top with a governor and attorney general and myself, we are able to join those other states that have filed lawsuit after lawsuit and have challenged what the administration is doing.

We saw this most particularly last week, when 20-plus states with Democratic leadership filed lawsuit against cuts to SNAP benefits.

And two federal judges upheld that lawsuit and are now requiring the disbursement of those critical resources to cover SNAP costs.

And so this is the ability that we have in this new administration to challenge the Trump White House, rather than capitulate to it in the ways that we have seen our current governor and attorney general doing.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: I just want to ask you one personal question.

You did make history last night, not only as the first Muslim woman elected statewide in Virginia, but the first Muslim woman elected statewide anywhere in the country.

I mean, I imagine on some level you would rather your faith not be an issue at all.

But, personally, I wonder, does -- how does this moment feel for you?

GHAZALA HASHMI: Well, it feels tremendous, most especially because of the reactions and the responses that I'm hearing, not just from Virginians, but all across the country, especially from young women, women who come from diverse backgrounds and other faith traditions.

They see an opportunity, they value the representation, and they know how critical it is that diverse voices be at every level of government and also in those spaces where historically our perspectives and our representation has not been.

And they understand that value.

And I'm very delighted to be the first.

But I certainly know that I will not be the last.

The work that we're doing here in Virginia is really representative of the growing diversity of all of our communities and the need to ensure that multiple perspectives and backgrounds, ethnicities are truly present when decisions are being made.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: All right, that is Lieutenant Governor-Elect Ghazala Hashmi of Virginia.

Thank you so much for joining us.

GHAZALA HASHMI: Thank you.