{"id":15238,"date":"2025-12-08T18:48:26","date_gmt":"2025-12-08T18:48:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aacyf.org\/?p=15238"},"modified":"2025-12-08T18:48:54","modified_gmt":"2025-12-08T18:48:54","slug":"2025-elections-see-historic-surge-in-aa-nh-pi-candidates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aacyf.org\/?p=15238","title":{"rendered":"2025 Elections See Historic Surge in AA &amp; NH\/PI Candidates"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>WASHINGTON<\/strong>\u2014In the 2025 election cycle, 496 Asian American and Native Hawaiian\/Pacific Islander (AA &amp; NH\/PI) candidates ran for office at the local and state levels. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThis year we\u2019ve seen nearly 500 AA &amp; NH\/PI candidates seek elected office at the local and state levels\u2014an astonishing 130% increase from 2023. This marks a historic record of AA &amp; NH\/PI candidates for an off-election year,\u201d said&nbsp;<strong>Madalene Xuan-Trang Mielke<\/strong>, President &amp; CEO of APAICS. \u201cWe\u2019ve also seen an increase in AA &amp; NH\/PI women candidates this cycle. Of the 190 AA &amp; NH\/PI women who ran for office, 120 have won their races or are projected to win. APAICS is proud to see continued growth in the number of AA &amp; NH\/PI candidates and applauds these leaders for rising to the task of representing our communities in office.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The 2025 election cycle has also seen many historic firsts for the AA &amp; NH\/PI community:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Ghazala Hashmi<\/strong>&nbsp;&#8211; Elected Lt. Governor of Virginia; the first South Asian person elected statewide in Virginia and the first Muslim woman to win a statewide seat in the U.S.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>May Nirvar<\/strong>&nbsp;&#8211; The first Chinese American elected to the Virginia House of Delegates.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Jas Singh&nbsp;<\/strong>&#8211; The first Sikh American elected to the Virginia House of Delegates.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Zohran Mamdani&nbsp;<\/strong>&#8211; The first South Asian and Muslim Mayor of New York City, the nation\u2019s largest city.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Kaohly Her&nbsp;<\/strong>&#8211; The first Hmong American and woman elected as Mayor of St. Paul, MN.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Pulkit Desai&nbsp;<\/strong>&#8211; The first Asian American Mayor of Parsippany-Troy Hills Township, NJ.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Gina Ortiz-Jones&nbsp;<\/strong>&#8211; The first Asian American woman and openly gay Mayor of San Antonio, TX. (Elected in a run-off election in June 2025.)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Singh Swarnjit&nbsp;<\/strong>&#8211; The first Sikh American Mayor of Norwich, CT.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Mohammed Suhel Ahmed&nbsp;<\/strong>&#8211; The first South Asian American elected to the Atlantic City Council.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Ashfaq Syed&nbsp;<\/strong>&#8211; The first South Asian American elected to the Naperville City Council.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Additionally,&nbsp;<strong>Aftab Pureval<\/strong>\u2014the first Asian American Mayor of Cincinnati\u2014and&nbsp;<strong>Michelle Wu<\/strong>\u2014the first Asian American and woman Mayor of Boston\u2014were elected to a second term.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>WASHINGTON\u2014In the 2025&#46;&#46;&#46;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15238","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/aacyf.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15238","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/aacyf.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/aacyf.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aacyf.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aacyf.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15238"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/aacyf.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15238\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15240,"href":"https:\/\/aacyf.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15238\/revisions\/15240"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/aacyf.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aacyf.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aacyf.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}