Eleven was the record for Black women holding statewide elective executive office in the United States, and the November 3, 2026 election broke it. At least 18 will hold one now, by the count of Rutgers University’s Center for American Women and Politics.
Georgia produced three of them in a single night. Keisha Lance Bottoms was elected governor, the first Black woman elected governor in American history and the first woman to lead the state. Penny Brown Reynolds, a judge, was elected secretary of state, the first Black woman elected to that office in Georgia. Tanya Miller won the attorney general’s race, the first woman and the first Black woman to take it.
Bottoms named where she was standing. “Crawfordsville produced the Confederacy’s vice president, but tonight it also produced your next governor,” she said. “And I will be a governor for everyone in this state.”
Her opponent, the healthcare billionaire Rick Jackson, spent more than $200 million of his own money on the race.
Two more wins sit outside Georgia and outside that count, because neither office is a state executive one. Juliana Stratton, the lieutenant governor of Illinois, was elected to the United States Senate. Melat Kiros was elected to represent Colorado’s 1st Congressional District.
Between them, the three women Georgia elected will set a state budget, run its elections and decide what the state prosecutes.
