Ghazala Hashmi

Well, thank you so much, Ben.

And you're absolutely right.

Ever since January, since the inauguration of Donald Trump, we have been facing serious crises here in Virginia.

The massive doge cuts that began almost immediately into this Trump administration

have hit Virginia especially hard.

You know, so many of our federal workforce are Virginians, and we have seen the layoffs impacting families, the economic uncertainty, and the cuts to federal grants and contracts that affect many of our

businesses and our corporate interests.

We're seeing an impact also in the port of Virginia, which is the port way for thousands and thousands of cargo ships that come through delivering goods and products from all across the world.

And so the impacts from tariffs, from the cuts, and now we have the looming crisis of the SNAP cuts, as well as cuts to Medicaid.

All of these are creating a perfect storm in Virginia.

And we have not seen our governor, Glenn Youngkin, actually standing up for Virginians.

And it is reaching a crisis point for many families now.

Yes, you know, the Republican ticket that is running for these three critical seats, Governor, Lieutenant Governor and Attorney General have proven themselves to be more aligned to Donald Trump rather than focused on the best interest of Virginians.

And in particular, the individual I'm running against,

uh has repeatedly said he wants to close all public schools he has as you pointed out compared reproductive health care access critical health care access to slavery and he has also supported hr1 the disastrous legislation that is going to strip away critical health care insurance from over 300 000 virginians

He doesn't seem to have a problem with the massive doge cuts, and he is supporting the MAGA platform entirely.

And you know, what's really ironic is that he is an openly gay man who has also said that he doesn't support marriage equality, which is one of our three constitutional amendments that we are working on this upcoming session.

And as I've said to him and to others, I'm ready to fight for his rights, even if he's not.

Well, you know, Ben, I decided to run for office myself for the first time in 2019.

Prior to that, I spent almost 30 years in the college classroom.