In 250 years, American voters have elected exactly three Black governors, all Democrats: L. Douglas Wilder of Virginia in 1989, Deval Patrick of Massachusetts in 2006 and Wes Moore of Maryland in 2022. Two others served without winning a governor's race. During Reconstruction, P. B. S. Pinchback, a Republican, briefly became governor of Louisiana in 1872–1873 after the sitting governor was impeached. David Paterson of New York, a Democrat, took office when Eliot Spitzer resigned in 2008. On November 3, 2026, that short list could grow. Eight Black major-party nominees are on the ballot, a record, and they include men and women, Democrats and Republicans, in states from Florida to Minnesota.
Eight Names on the November Ballot
Wes Moore (D), Maryland. A Rhodes Scholar, Army veteran of Afghanistan and bestselling author, Moore is seeking a second term. He is the only Black governor in office today, and Maryland is favored to keep him.
Byron Donalds (R), Florida. A congressman since 2021, Donalds won the Republican primary in August to succeed the term-limited Ron DeSantis. He faces Democrat David Jolly, a former Republican congressman. Donalds says he will not campaign on his race. "Florida is a great meritocracy," he told reporters on primary night.
Keisha Lance Bottoms (D), Georgia. As mayor of Atlanta from 2018 to 2022, Bottoms led the city through the pandemic and the 2020 protests, then served as a senior adviser in the Biden White House. She faces Republican Rick Jackson. She traces her Georgia roots back five generations, to a plantation in Crawfordville. If she wins, she would be the first Black woman elected governor of any state.
John James (R), Michigan. A West Point graduate and Army helicopter pilot who flew in Iraq, James lost two U.S. Senate races before winning a House seat in 2022. He faces Democrat Jocelyn Benson, Michigan's secretary of state, in a swing state both parties are watching closely.
Lisa Demuth (R), Minnesota. Demuth is the first Black speaker of the Minnesota House. She faces Democratic U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, so Minnesota will elect its first woman governor whatever happens. Demuth says she "has never led with any type of identity politics," but she acknowledges the history at stake.
Aaron Ford (D), Nevada. Ford is Nevada's first Black attorney general and once led the state Senate. He is challenging Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo. He says he would bring a focus on voting rights, civil rights and economic security.
David Crowley (D), Wisconsin. Milwaukee County's executive since 2020, and the youngest person ever elected to that office, Crowley is running for an open seat in one of the closest-fought states in the country.
Jermaine Johnson (D), South Carolina. A state representative from the Columbia area and a former college basketball player, Johnson is running an uphill race in a Deep South state where Black voters are the backbone of the Democratic Party.
Why High Office Stays So Hard to Reach
Winning a governor's race is hard for Black candidates, and winning a Senate seat has been no easier. Only 14 African Americans have served in the U.S. Senate since 1870. Just four, Hiram Revels, Blanche K. Bruce, Edward Brooke and Carol Moseley Braun, served before the 21st century. The other 10 arrived after 2000, beginning with Barack Obama, who entered the Senate in 2005 and left after winning the presidency in 2008. The Obama years opened the door for the next five: Roland Burris of Illinois, appointed to Obama's seat in 2009; Tim Scott of South Carolina, a Republican appointed in 2013 and later elected; Mo Cowan of Massachusetts, appointed in 2013; Cory Booker of New Jersey, elected in 2013; and Kamala Harris of California, elected in 2016. The Biden era brought the last four: Raphael Warnock of Georgia, elected in 2021; Laphonza Butler of California, appointed in 2023; and Lisa Blunt Rochester of Delaware and Angela Alsobrooks of Maryland, both elected in 2024. Several of the 14 were appointed, not elected, and only four, Brooke, Scott, Booker and Warnock, have won more than one Senate race. The numbers say the same thing about both offices: statewide power has been nearly closed to Black candidates for most of American history.
The reasons go deep. A governor wins statewide, without the protection of a majority-Black district, and party insiders and donors have often steered money elsewhere. Stacey Abrams, who lost Georgia's governor's race twice, put it simply: "Black women have not been executives, and the absence of that proof point becomes a self-reinforcing philosophy."
The stakes this fall go beyond firsts. Since the Supreme Court's decision in Louisiana v. Callais, states have redrawn majority-Black districts, and governors sign or veto those maps. Governors also shape maternal health, Medicaid, policing, school funding and how voting is run. Students in Greensboro, North Carolina, found this out firsthand this month when they lost their campus polling sites.
MAGA Is Not the Black Republican Tradition
Donalds and James are MAGA candidates. Their politics belong to Trumpism, a more extreme version of Republican ideology; both oppose DEI programs and are closely tied to Donald Trump. That sets them apart from the traditional Black Republicans of recent decades, such as Arthur Fletcher, the architect of federal affirmative action under Richard Nixon, J. C. Watts, Michael Steele and Tara Setmayer. Their rise is a sharp departure from that tradition, not evidence of a new, more varied Black electorate.
Black voters have always been varied. After the Civil War, Black men joined the Republican Party, the party of Lincoln, emancipation and the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments. Black officeholders of the Reconstruction era were elected as Republicans, while the Democratic Party, nationally and across the South, stood for white supremacy and states' rights. The fall of Reconstruction crushed Black political power, as Democratic governments across the South worked to strip Black rights away and Jim Crow shut Black Southerners out of politics for generations.
The Great Migration, the Great Depression and a more conservative Republican Party began to loosen those ties. In Northern cities, Democratic machines offered Black voters patronage and a place in the system in exchange for votes, and Black voters increasingly backed Franklin D. Roosevelt. The decisive break came in 1960 and deepened under Lyndon B. Johnson, who signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Civil Rights Act of 1968 and launched the Great Society, as Black Americans gained visibility inside the national Democratic Party.
The lesson is plain. Like any other group, Black voters back candidates who serve their interests: civil and political rights, education, economic empowerment, housing and social justice. The claim that Black Americans support Democrats out of blind loyalty is a myth and an insulting stereotype. Black voters have always judged candidates on their records, and they will do so again this November. We will tell the fuller story in our coming article on Black Americans and political parties.
HistorianSpeaks will follow these races through Election Day and report the results, and what they mean, in a follow-up piece.
Previous Coverage
- P.B.S. Pinchback, First African American Governor, 1872
- Hiram Revels, First Black U.S. Senator, 1870
- Black Legislators in Reconstruction Virginia, 1870
- Charles Caldwell, Assassination of a State Senator, 1875
- Civil Rights Act of 1964
- Selma to Montgomery March, 1965
- The Civil Rights Act of 1968
- Supreme Court Watch: *Louisiana v. Callais* (2026)
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