From Stacey Abrams to Keisha Lance Bottoms, the Black women who have fought to become governor

Dozens of campaigns have challenged a barrier that still stands in 2026: No Black woman has ever been elected governor in the United States.

There are currently eight Black candidates running for governor in eight different states in the 2026 midterm elections. With five Black Democratic candidates and three Black Republican candidates in the running, this marks a record number of Black candidates in a single election. 

In the United States’ 250 years, the country has elected only three Black governors, all men. In 1989, Virginia elected Douglas Wilder, who became the country’s first Black American governor. 17 years later, Deval Patrick of Massachusetts became the second. And 16 years after that, Wes Moore became Maryland’s elected governor in 2022. 

And in all these years, while 53 women have been elected as state governors, not one Black woman has held the title of governor, but that is not for a lack of trying. This year, democratic candidate Keisha Lance Bottoms in Georgia and Republican candidate Lisa Demuth in Minnesota are campaigning to be the first. However, their campaigns follow years of Black women who have cast their bids to become state governors. 

Prior to 2022, data from the Center for American Women in Politics at Rutgers University (CAWP) showed that only 16 Black women had run for governor, all of whom lost in their party’s primaries. With the exception of Stacey Abrams, who made history as the first Black woman to gain a Georgia Democratic Party nomination for governor in 2018 and again in 2022. 

“I am proud to be a Black woman whose experiences and whose qualifications and whose efforts can result in me becoming the governor of Georgia. It matters what we see,” Abrams told CNN in 2022. 

Abrams’ first campaign for governorship, paired with Vice President Kamala Harris becoming the first Black US vice president, inspired a surge of Black women to run for statewide offices in 2022. Here are some of the women who ran for governor through the years but did not win their party’s primary.

Deidre DeJear

Where: Iowa 

When: 2022

Mia McLeod

Where: South Carolina 

When 2022

Deirdre Dickson–Gilbert

Where: Texas

When 2022 

Connie Johnson

Where: Oklahoma 

When: 2018, 2022 & 2026 

Danielle Allen 

Where: Massachusetts 

When: 2022 

Yolanda Flowers

Where: Alabama

When: 2022 & 2026

Dr. Carnita Atwater

Where: Tenessee

When: 2026

Fast-forward four years, and Bottoms, the former mayor of Atlanta, has emphasized the historic nature of her campaign. In an interview with theGrio, the gubernatorial candidate shared: 

“[I’m] able to trace my family back at least five generations in this state to a plantation in Georgia and on my dad’s side…Obviously, history will write itself when I am elected, but…as someone who is a descendant of the once enslaved in this country and to know just how far we have come as a people, it is just personally very fulfilling for me and an honor to have this opportunity to serve.”