Published : 05 Nov 2026, 12:06 PM
Updated : 05 Nov 2026, 12:06 PM
Politicians of Bangladeshi origin have won state-level seats in New Hampshire, Georgia, Connecticut and North Carolina, lifting spirits among expatriates as Democrats swept the US midterm elections.
Three of the four winners ran as Democrats and one as a Republican in Tuesday’s elections.
Aboul Khan, who hailed from Pirojpur, won a seventh term in the New Hampshire House of Representatives as a Republican.
Sheikh Rahman, a Democrat who hailed from Kishoreganj, took a fifth term unopposed in Georgia Senate District 5.
Masudur Rahman, a Democrat who hailed from Chandpur, won a third term by a wide margin in Connecticut Senate District 4.
Haseeb Fatmi, a Democrat who hailed from Gazipur, won North Carolina Senate District 18.
Saddam Azlan Salim, a Democrat who hailed from Noakhali, currently holds Virginia Senate District 37 after winning in 2024. His seat is up for election next year.
Expatriates view the Democratic wins in both chambers of Congress and the local successes of Bangladeshi-origin politicians as significant.
Shahjahan Sheikh, a mainstream politician in the Bronx, said voters had delivered a “fitting reply” to President Donald Trump’s “misdeeds” of the past two years.
“That is the beauty of democracy,” he said, hoping the result would shape the thinking of politicians and policymakers.
Faizul Islam, a professor at University of Maryland Global Campus. who works on international economics and politics, said lies and hypocrisy do not last.
Americans, fed up with Trump’s injustice and authoritarianism, had expressed their anger in a “ballot revolution”, he said.
According to him, the Republican Party’s base has been weakened by Trump, and it must keep him at a distance to recover.
Akhter Hossain Badal, chairman of RLB Group on Long Island, said discontent had built since Trump’s second term began.
The war with Iran, tariffs that soured ties with allies and anti-immigration moves had worn out even some Republican voters, while rising prices squeezed ordinary people, he said.
“Americans want this to end, and the ballots reflected that.”
Khorshed Khandaker, another mainstream politician, from Queens, credited Trump himself, since candidates he attacked had won.
Democrats must learn from the result, he said, and delivering on public expectations in the Senate and Congress over the next two years could open the road to the White House in 2028.
Ashraf Ahmed, a writer and retired scientist living in Maryland, said the midterm results reflected a stronger vote against Trump than a victory for the Democrats.
He said it remained to be seen whether Democrats, despite gaining majorities in the Senate and House, could ease people's economic hardship while facing opposition from Trump.
Failure to do so could make it harder for the party to win the 2028 presidential election, he said.
He, however, sees little prospect of a major shift in US policy towards Bangladesh, regardless of which party holds power.
