Americans have only elected 3 Black governors. This year, 8 major party candidates are on the ballot

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — Across 250 years, only three elected governors out of thousands have been Black –- all Democrats and all men, including current Maryland Gov. Wes Moore.

But Moore could soon have company.

With Florida Republicans nominating U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds on Tuesday, there are seven Black major party gubernatorial nominees in addition to Moore — men and women, Democrats and Republicans — on November ballots.

“We do have a unique moment here,” said Moore, who recently became chair of the National Governors Association. He often says that his historic status is “not an applause line” but instead represents a bigger challenge that this country is still looking to overcome.

The Black nominees typically do not focus on the history at stake, instead emphasizing their experience and policy proposals.

“Florida is a great meritocracy in America,” Donalds told reporters Tuesday night after not mentioning his race at all in his victory speech. “I’ll let you guys write about that,” he added.

But many said that more reflective representation matters given the nation’s history, from slavery to Jim Crow and the lingering effects.

“It’s not a secret that some issues in the African American community get ignored and don’t have a voice,” said Aaron Ford, Nevada’s first Black attorney general and now the Democratic nominee for governor. Ford said he brings a focus to issues ranging from voting rights and civil rights to the economy.

Republican Lisa Demuth said she “has never led with any type of identity politics” as Minnesota's first Black House speaker and now her party's nominee for governor. “But I recognize the historic state we are in right now,” she said. Michigan Republicans also chose U.S. Rep. John James, who is Black, as their gubernatorial nominee.

Former New York Gov. David Paterson, a Democrat who was not elected but ascended when Eliot Spitzer resigned in 2008, celebrated that the slate crosses party lines. “This is one day when maybe the Democrats and Republicans could stand in front of a statue of George Washington and let him know that we’re finally getting it right,” he said.

Democrats, meanwhile, emphasized that their Black candidates – who also include Keisha Lance Bottoms in Georgia, Jermaine Johnson in South Carolina and David Crowley in Wisconsin – are especially important after the U.S. Supreme Cour t cleared the way for states to redraw legislative districts that are majority or plurality nonwhite. That was compounded by President Donald Trump’s attacks on diversity initiatives and push to rewrite how the U.S. tells its history of the slave trade and Jim Crow segregation.

“Governors, in many ways, are becoming the last lines of defense against what we’re seeing in Washington,” Moore said.

Karen Finney, who helped push Democrat Joe Biden to select a Black woman as his vice presidential running mate, said Black politicians often are the first and loudest advocates on issues that acutely affect Black constituents. She and others cited health disparities such as maternal and infant mortality and sickle cell disease, and Finney noted that an inflationary economy hits harder in Black communities that, on average, have lower income and net worth than the wider population.

She said it is important for legislators to raise those matters and even more impactful when it is an executive.

“These are people who have the power to shape our lives, and they shape the agenda," Finney said.

But the governor's seat has been notoriously hard for Black politicians to reach, even more difficult than the U.S. Senate. Democrat Douglas Wilder of Virginia took office in 1990 as the nation's first elected Black governor.

“I didn’t become Maryland’s first Black governor because the Democratic Party said, ‘I think it’s time for us to put Wes Moore up in the seat’,” Moore said. “I had to run against the party.”

“I don’t think that the party is doing enough,” Moore added, specifically bemoaning a “negligence” in Southern states where Black voters anchor Democrats' base.

Stacey Abrams, who lost two Georgia governor’s races, recalled white Democratic power players raising money for her primary opponent in 2018, although she disputed that explicit racism was the issue.

“We do what we’ve done because it’s what we did,” she said. “Black women have not been executives, and the absence of that proof point becomes a self-reinforcing philosophy.”

This time, she noted, Bottoms already has been an executive as mayor of Atlanta.

In Minnesota, history will be made in November when the state elects its first female governor as Demuth competes against Democrat Amy Klobuchar, a U.S. senator. Demuth said she looks forward to a day when such distinctions seem less notable.

"One of the things that I really do look forward to is where it’s already done, where it no longer makes history,” she said. “So I think of young women, little girls that are looking at you, could I ever be governor of Minnesota? I hope when I win, they’re able to look at point to that and say she’s already done it.”

In Georgia, Bottoms told the National Association of Black Journalists last week that she does not “give a lot of talk … about the historical nature” of her campaign. Yet she notes her family's Georgia ties go “back at least five generations through a plantation in Crawfordville” and that her grandfather had to “walk through these back doors” when he moved to Atlanta. She never mentioned slavery or segregation but said her ancestry “is always present with me.”

Abrams, who has campaigned for Bottoms and other Democrats this year, was more direct, arguing that all politics is identity politics of some kind — and that Republicans’ version is simply more coded.

“When your Constitution specifically strips a race of its humanity, you cannot then later on say identity doesn’t matter and has no effect, and we've spent 250 years trying to reckon with that identity” with social, political and legal fights, she continued. “So, it’s deeply disingenuous, if not woefully naive, to say that identity does not matter.”

Deval Patrick, whose tenure in Massachusetts overlapped with Paterson's in New York, said his race mattered especially to his Black constituents and what they wanted from him. It was “just different than the expectations of my predecessors,” he said, recalling criticism after he did not visit a Boston neighborhood where a teenager had been killed by gun violence.

“His mother was on the news grieving, and at some point she said while the cameras were rolling, where is Gov. Patrick?” he said. “Nobody had ever asked one of my predecessors to come to a crime scene in a neighborhood. Never.”

In Nevada, Ford said being governor still means recognizing how many core issues – jobs, housing and healthcare – cross demographic lines.

“It could be a white man, a Latino woman. It could be a person urban, suburban or rural Nevada. It could be someone from northern Nevada, southern Nevada. These are the issues that are important to them,” he said.

Patrick, who talks regularly with Ford and Moore, agreed, saying that is not just how a governor does the job, but how a candidate wins it in the first place.

“The successful candidates are the ones who present themselves as candidates for everyone,” he said, “and not candidates for just some.”

Sloan reported from Washington.

FILE - Gubernatorial candidate Aaron Ford, attorney general of Nevada, speaks during a primary election night watch party after winning the Democratic nomination, June 9, 2026, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong, File)

Minnesota House Speaker Lisa Demuth, a Republican gubernatorial candidate, speaks during a Minnesota Governor Candidate Forum in Morgan, Minn., Wednesday, Aug. 5, 2026. (AP Photo/Ellen Schmidt)

Democratic gubernatorial nominee David Crowley, center, and lieutenant governor nominee Sarah Godlewski, right, meet supporter Mike Balisle, left, following a breakfast with Democratic leaders Wednesday, Aug. 12, 2026, in Middleton, Wis. (AP Photo/Kayla Wolf)

Florida Republican gubernatorial candidate Byron Donalds, center, waves next to his wife Erika, while standing on stage with their children Darin, left, Damon, second from left, and Mason during at a primary election party Tuesday, Aug. 18, 2026, in Orlando, Fla. (AP Photo/John Raoux)

JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — Republican U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan and Democratic former Rep. Mary Peltola wasted no time preparing for their general election campaign after Tuesday's primary in Alaska, criticizing each other's records and previewing the next phase of a high-stakes Senate race that has drawn national attention.

With control of the chamber on the line, Sullivan stepped up his attack against Peltola in the days leading to the primary, questioning her effectiveness while in Congress and seeking to align her with Lower 48 “liberals.” Peltola positioned herself as someone who would represent “regular” people and push back against special interests and wealthy politicians.

Both are seen as the leading candidates in November because of their fundraising and name recognition.

The Senate race was one of several being decided in Tuesday's primary, which also featured Alaska's only U.S. House seat and a wide open governor's race. Under the state’s open primary system, all candidates appeared on the same ballot. The four top vote-getters qualify for the ranked vote general election, but it was too early to call all candidates advancing in the top races.

In the House race, Republican Rep. Nick Begich advanced, along with independent Bill Hill. Two Democrats, former lawmakers Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins and Tom Begich, Nick Begich's uncle, advanced in the race for governor.

Voters Tuesday also approved a ballot measure that would reimpose campaign contribution limits, five years after a divided federal appeals court struck down a number of caps.

Sullivan and Peltola were the highest-profile candidates among a field of 16 and vastly outraised the other competitors. The race, among a handful that could help determine control of the Senate, has drawn significant attention from outside groups, with Republican and Democratic campaign organizations identifying it as a top target.

Peltola, who in 2022 became the first Alaska Native to serve in Congress, has tried to steer a centrist path and revived the “fish, family, freedom” slogan that first propelled her to office. But in the days before the primary, she shook up her campaign leadership. The campaign described the changes as “staffing updates as we transition into the general election.”

Sullivan, a veteran and ally of President Donald Trump who is seeking a third term, campaigned on supporting the military, opening more land for oil and gas extraction, and voting for Trump’s signature tax and spending law. He told supporters Tuesday that his office is “getting big things done.”

He said “D.C. Democrats” don't have a vision for the state but instead have placed a target on Alaska, such as opposing opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling.

He criticized Peltola as ineffective during her time in Congress. She lost reelection in 2024.

Peltola said she worked well with Sullivan as part of the state's three-person congressional delegation. But she said the Trump administration has brought challenges to Alaska, including cuts to the federal workforce, and she blasted Sullivan for his support of Trump’s tax and spending bill. She said the bill has not brought opportunity to Alaskans and accused Sullivan of voting for “corporate greed.”

“We’ve got to get working people — regular people — in” office, she told supporters.

A third candidate, a Republican also named Dan Sullivan, stole much of the attention ahead of the primary.

Dan J. Sullivan won a legal fight to appear on the ballot despite claims by the senator and GOP allies that he was a sham candidate running at the behest of Democrats with the intent of causing confusion. Dan J. Sullivan, a retired teacher from the island community of Petersburg, denied that and said frustration with the incumbent prompted him to run.

He appeared on the ballot as Daniel J. Sullivan Jr., with no party affiliation — a decision that a state elections official said was intended to minimize possible confusion. The senator was listed as Dan S. Sullivan, Republican and incumbent.

It was too early to determine whether he would be among the four Senate candidates in the general election.

Nick Begich, who was endorsed by Trump, cast himself as hardworking and effective in his role in the U.S. House. He said results from the primary show that Alaskans are ready to return him to Congress.

Hill, a fisherman and former educator from a small southwestern village, has made affordability a key issue in his campaign. He said Alaskans are tired of paying high costs for healthcare, gas and groceries.

“Begich and his buddies think they can play by a different set of rules than we do,” he said after advancing Tuesday. “The Alaskans I know don’t think that’s right.”

The governor's race was wide open with Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy barred by term limits from seeking a third consecutive stint. The crowded field was mostly led by Republican tickets. A Democrat hasn't served as governor in Alaska since Tony Knowles left office in 2002.

Republicans in the race included Bernadette Wilson, a businessperson and conservative activist; Click Bishop, a former lawmaker; Dave Bronson, a former mayor of Anchorage; and Adam Crum and Treg Taylor, two former members of Dunleavy’s Cabinet.

Associated Press writer Mark Thiessen in Anchorage contributed to this report.

Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, points to a passing motorist during morning rush hour traffic in Anchorage, Alaska, Tuesday, Aug. 18, 2026. (AP Photo/Mark Thiessen)

Mary Peltola, a Democrat running for the U.S. Senate seat in Alaska, addresses supporters at an election watch party Tuesday, Aug. 18, 2026, in Anchorage, Alaska. (AP Photo/Mark Thiessen)

Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, receives his ballot from poll worker Jo Ann Johnson to vote in the primary election, at his precinct located at the Alaska Zoo in Anchorage, Alaska., Tuesday, Aug. 18, 2026. (AP Photo/Mark Thiessen)

Mary Peltola, a Democrat running for the U.S. Senate seat in Alaska, addresses supporters at an election watch party Tuesday, Aug. 18, 2026, in Anchorage, Alaska. (AP Photo/Mark Thiessen)

Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, arrives to wave signs at an intersection during morning rush hour in Anchorage, Alaska, Tuesday, Aug. 18, 2026. (AP Photo/Mark Thiessen)