Governor Races: Four Black Candidates Win Historic Terms
Bottoms becomes the first Black woman governor, while Ford leads in Nevada.
By John Ferrari ·
Four Black candidates won governorships in the 2026 midterms.
Voters elected these leaders across four states on Tuesday. The results include the first Black woman ever chosen for a governor's office. Democrat Stacey Bottoms of Georgia secured this milestone. She is also the first woman to serve as Georgia's governor. Her victory contributes to a national total of 17 women now holding gubernatorial offices.
In Florida, Republican Byron Donalds will become the state's first Black governor. Donalds has represented Florida's 19th District in the U.S. House since 2020. In Wisconsin, moderate Democrat Tom Tiffany lost to Crowley. Tiffany is a U.S. representative and an ally of President Trump. Wisconsin is considered one of the country's most politically divided states.
Maryland voters reelected Democrat Moore to a second term. Moore first won the office in 2022, becoming the state's first Black governor. Before this election cycle, only three Black Americans had been elected as governors. Former New York Governor David Paterson assumed the role in 2008 after Eliot Spitzer resigned.
Moore told CBS News on Tuesday that the results were incredibly important. He noted that he was the only Black governor in America until this moment. "I was very clear that that's a title that I did not want to hold onto for very long," Moore said. He added that the country has at least doubled the number of elected Black governors in one cycle.
Bottoms described how she learned of her win on Wednesday. She was wearing AirPods to work on her speech when her husband kicked her while lying on the sofa nearby. "He said, 'They called it,'" Bottoms said. "And I said, 'Called what?' And so that's how I knew."
Nevada remains undecided. Democrat Aaron Ford leads Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo by more than 70,000 votes. Ford served as Nevada's attorney general before his 2018 election. If he prevails, he will be the state's first Black governor. He would also be the first Black governor elected west of the Mississippi.
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