6 wins for Black women in midterm elections that might’ve gone under the radar

While some major Black female candidates failed to pull out victories on Nov. 8, there were other wins to celebrate for candidates up and down the ballot.

Gerren Keith Gaynor  |  Nov 14, 2022

Despite months of heavy campaigning and the hundreds of millions of dollars raised this past election cycle, major high-profile Black women on the ballot came out unsuccessful. Most notably, Stacey Abrams lost her second bid to become governor of Georgia and the potential to make history as the first Black woman governor in U.S. history. 

Additionally, U.S. Rep. Val Demings, D-Fla., failed to clinch a win in her race for the U.S. Senate. And Cheri Beasley, whose race for Senate in North Carolina largely flew under the radar, put up a competitive fight but, ultimately, was unsuccessful at her attempt to make history in the politically ‘purple’ state. 

While some major Black female candidates failed to pull out victories on Nov. 8, there were certainly other wins to celebrate for candidates up and down the ballot.

“Black women were amongst the most effective, whether they won or lost, in standing up against Trumpism and extremism, and were, more than other candidates, targeted with an onslaught of dark money attacks,” Aimee Allison, founder of the political advocacy group, She the People, told theGrio. “We had some heartbreaking losses, but also some successes. And these Black women have demonstrated that they can, all of them, build a multiracial set of voters.”

While most eyes were on the high-profile Senate contest between now-Democratic Senator-elect John Fetterman and Republican Dr. Mehmet Oz, Summer Lee cracked the glass ceiling in Pennsylvania after winning her U.S. House race in the state’s 12th Congressional District. 

When she’s sworn in this upcoming January, Lee, who on Sunday was among several newly elected progressive Democrats who attended freshman orientation on Capitol Hill, will soon caucus alongside popular progressive voices in the Democratic Party like U.S. Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ayanna Pressley, Cori Bush and Ilhan Omar.