By Jordan Meadows
Staff Writer
The 2026 midterm elections produced a series of historic victories for Black politicians across the United States. Amid a sweeping Democratic victory, Black candidates secured governorships in Georgia, Wisconsin, Nevada, and Florida—and a likely victory in the Mississippi Senate race.
In Georgia, former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms made history by defeating Republican Rick Jackson to become the first Black woman elected governor in United States history. Her victory also made her Georgia's first female governor and the state's first Black governor.
Bottoms' election carries particular historical significance given her family's longstanding roots in Georgia, which extend back five generations to Crawfordville. Her family history includes ancestors who endured slavery and later participated in the political and economic development of Black communities during Reconstruction. Her great-great-grandmother, Betsy Peak, was born into slavery in 1845, while her great-great-grandfather, Shepherd Peak, became a cotton gin owner and served in the Georgia Legislature during Reconstruction.
Before becoming the city's 60th mayor in 2018, Bottoms served as a Fulton County magistrate judge from 2008 to 2010 and represented Atlanta's 11th District on the City Council from 2010 to 2018. She also led the Atlanta-Fulton County Recreation Authority and became the only mayor in Atlanta history to have served in all three branches of local government. During her mayoral administration, she led the city through the COVID-19 pandemic and the racial justice demonstrations of 2020. President Joe Biden appointed her in 2022 as a senior adviser and director of the White House Office of Public Engagement, a position she held until 2023.
In Wisconsin, Democrat David Crowley defeated Republican Tom Tiffany to become the state's first Black governor. Crowley previously served as Milwaukee County executive, becoming the first Black person and youngest individual elected to lead Wisconsin's largest county in 2020, at age 33.
His family lost its home when he was 10, and he experienced additional evictions during his childhood. He attended college intermittently while balancing financial responsibilities and public service, ultimately completing his bachelor's degree in December 2024. He became the first member of his family to graduate from college.
Nevada also elected its first Black governor, with Democratic Attorney General Aaron Ford defeating Republican incumbent Joe Lombardo. Ford's victory makes him the first Black person to lead Nevada and the first Black governor of a state west of the Mississippi River.
In 2016, Ford became the first Black person to serve as majority leader of the Nevada Senate. He subsequently became the state's first Black attorney general when he assumed office in 2019.
Ford has frequently discussed his childhood experiences with poverty, including periods when his family struggled to afford basic necessities. He also became a father while attending Texas A&M University and raised his eldest son as a young single parent while relying on public assistance. He went on to earn multiple advanced degrees, including a law degree and a doctorate, before establishing his legal and political career.
Florida produced another historic result, on the Republican side of the political divide. Congressman Byron Donald defeated Democrat David Jolly to become Florida's first Black governor. His victory makes him the first Black person elected to lead the state and places him among the small group of Black Americans to win a gubernatorial election in the United States.
Donalds previously served in the Florida House of Representatives beginning in 2016 before winning election to the U.S. House of Representatives in 2020. He became a prominent national political figure and was nominated for Speaker of the House during the multiple rounds of voting in January 2023. Born in New York to a family of Jamaican and Panamanian heritage, Donalds also brings an immigrant family background to Florida's governor's office.
The Mississippi Senate race also emerged as one of the election's most consequential contests for Black political representation. Democrat Scott Colom, a district attorney and seventh-generation Mississippian, was narrowly leading Republican incumbent Cindy Hyde-Smith in a race that could end a political absence dating back to Reconstruction.
The last Black person elected to represent Mississippi in the U.S. Senate was Blanche K. Bruce, who won election in 1874 and served from 1875 to 1881. Four years earlier, Hiram Rhodes Revels had become the first Black American to serve in the Senate after being selected by the Mississippi Legislature in 1870. If Colom's victory is confirmed, he would become the first Black U.S. senator elected from Mississippi in over 150 years and only the third Black senator in the state's history.
Colom leads Hyde-Smith by approximately 2,500 votes, with outstanding mail-in and provisional ballots still being processed.
At 28, Colom became the youngest and first Black justice court judge in Lowndes County. He subsequently became the first Black city prosecutor in Columbus and, in 2015, the first Black district attorney in Mississippi history to represent a majority-white judicial district. In 2022, President Joe Biden nominated Colom for a federal judgeship in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Mississippi, although the nomination did not advance to confirmation.
Political scientists and voting rights researchers have pointed to increased participation among Black voters as an important factor in the election's results. In Georgia, where voting data are collected by race, Black voter turnout increased compared with the 2022 midterm elections, while white voter turnout declined. Research published by the Brennan Center for Justice on November 6 found that the gap between Black and white turnout in Georgia fell to its lowest level in at least 20 years. The research also found that Black voters accounted for a larger share of the electorate in several historically significant Southern voting regions.
Overall, the 2026 midterms recorded the second-highest national midterm turnout rate since 1914, surpassed only by the 2018 midterms.
