State executives are more diverse than ever — here’s who won

The first woman and first openly gay person elected governor. The first Black woman elected attorney general. The first all-female governor and lieutenant governor team.

And those are just the firsts for Massachusetts.

Glass ceilings shattered across the country this week as voters from New England to the South propelled women and people of color to prominent positions in state government for the first time.

Women were elected governor of Massachusetts, New York and Arkansas for the first time, with a record 11 total women set to be sworn in as their state’s top executive next year. Massachusetts and Arkansas will be the first states in the nation to have women serving as both governor and lieutenant governor come January. Maryland elected its first Black governor — just the third elected in the nation’s history. And results are still rolling in.

“The more people we have from different backgrounds in high-profile leadership roles, the more diversity of ideas and experience we’ll see at the table,” Amanda Hunter, executive director of the Barbara Lee Family Foundation, which studies women in politics, said in an interview. “And having these qualified people be the strongest candidates for the job in their state in and of itself breaks down long-held stereotypes.”

Here are the barrier breakers poised to take office in January:

GOVERNORS AND LT. GOVERNORS

Maura Healey and Kim Driscoll (Mass.)

Maura Healey is the first woman and the first openly gay person elected governor of Massachusetts. Healey and Salem Mayor Kim Driscoll will be one of the first all-female governor and lieutenant governor teams in the country. And the two-term attorney general also broke the “curse” surrounding her position by winning election to an office that has eluded several of her predecessors.

“I want to say something to every little girl and every young LGBTQ person out there: I hope tonight shows you that you can be whatever, whoever, you want to be,” Healey declared to a boisterous crowd in Boston Tuesday night.

It’s a coronation that’s seemed to be years in the making, even if Healey herself wasn’t always sure this was the path she’d end up on. She was a political neophyte when she first ran for attorney general in 2014, an assistant attorney general who rose up to defeat establishment-backed former Democratic state Sen. Warren Tolman. Within days of her election, insiders were pitching her for higher office. And when she stepped into the race for governor, she was immediately the frontrunner.

The progressive prosecutor who burnished her profile by suing the Trump administration nearly 100 times, trounced her Donald Trump-backed Republican rival, Geoff Diehl, on Tuesday by double digits, capping off an all-but-inevitable ascension to the governor’s office.

That was the easy part. Healey will face a host of challenges come January, from fixing a public transit system riddled with safety problems and financial woes, to navigating competing pressures from moderates and progressives within her own party as Democrats regain unified control of state government.

Sarah Huckabee Sanders and Leslie Rutledge (Ark.)

Sarah Huckabee Sanders built a national profile as the third woman to serve as White House press secretary when she worked under former President Donald Trump. But those from Arkansas knew her well before as former Republican Gov. Mike Huckabee’s daughter.

Sanders held various positions on both her father’s political campaigns as well as former President George W. Bush’s team before eventually co-founding a Republican consulting firm. (She was named one of Time Magazine’s “40 under 40” in politics in 2010.) Sanders joined Fox News as a contributor soon after leaving the Trump administration.

Her win makes her the first woman and first daughter of a former governor to lead Arkansas, joining a handful of other female governors this year to make history in their states. Sanders never dipped below an 11-point polling lead over her Democratic opponent, Chris Jones, and came away with a double-digit victory Tuesday night.

Lieutenant governor-elect Leslie Rutledge already made history as the first female attorney general in the state, and was originally going to run for the top job before Sanders announced her candidacy. She ran on a separate platform and ticket than Sanders. But the two will now be one of the first two-woman governing teams alongside Healey and Driscoll.

Wes Moore and Aruna Miller (Md.)

Democrats see Wes Moore as a transformational figure, not just in Maryland, but for the party nationally. At 44, he has infused more youth and diversity in a party where most of its leaders are in or nearing their 80s.

Moore, a Rhodes Scholar and military veteran, is Maryland’s first Black governor and only the third elected in the nation’s 246-year history. Accomplishing that feat in his first run at elective office puts him in rare company. It’s perhaps why even before taking the oath of office, there are already lofty aspirations being placed on him, even whispers that he might make for good presidential material.

Come January, he’ll be tasked with filling a large number of vacancies at key state government agencies and overseeing the rollout of the state’s recreational marijuana program.

Moore will serve alongside Democrat Aruna Miller, the lieutenant governor-elect. A former legislator in the Maryland House of Delegates, Miller this week became the first Asian American, the first woman of color and the first immigrant elected statewide.

“I came to this country from India when I was seven years old,” Miller said to supporters at a Democratic National Committee rally in Bowie, Maryland the day before the election. “I didn't know a word of English when I came here.”

Kathy Hochul and Antonio Delgado (N.Y.)

Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s resignation last year amid allegations of sexual harrassment instantly broke a glass ceiling when it elevated Kathy Hochul into the Executive Mansion. As lieutenant governor for six years, she was known for zipping across the state, and was seen as running a comfortable lead ahead of her Republican opponent, Rep. Lee Zeldin, until recently, as concerns about crime and the economy took hold with voters.

New York briefly got its first Black chief executive when scandal consumed an earlier governor, too. But on Tuesday, Hochul notched the title of being the first woman elected to the position.

A former congresswoman, Hochul tapped Antonio Delgado after her initial pick for lieutenant governor, Brian Benjamin, resigned after he was arrested and charged in a federal bribery conspiracy case. Delagado became the first Latino to hold — and now elected to — statewide office in New York. Delgado came to the position after serving two terms in the House.

LIEUTENANT GOVernor

Austin Davis (Penn.)

Democrat Austin Davis became the first Black person to represent his western Pennsylvania state House district when he won a special election in 2018. Now he’s poised to be sworn in as the first Black lieutenant governor of the Keystone State.

ATTORNEY GENERAL

Anthony Brown (Md.)

For Rep. Anthony Brown, Election Day was a vindication of sorts. Eight years ago, he was the party’s nominee for governor who, after serving two terms as the lieutenant governor, ran for the state’s top job. But in a surprise for deep-blue Maryland, he was upset by a then-relatively unknown Republican, Larry Hogan.

In the intervening years, Brown resurrected his political career, serving three terms representing a majority-Black district just outside Washington and will now be sworn in as the state’s first Black attorney general.

During his years serving as the No. 2 in the O’Malley administration, he led the effort on decriminalizing marijuana. That work will likely come in handy as the state moves to implement its recreational cannabis program next year.

Andrea Campbell (Mass.)

Andrea Campbell’s rise in Massachusetts politics was meteoric. First elected to the Boston City Council seven years ago, Campbell served as the body’s first Black female president for two years before running for mayor in 2021. She hit a speed bump there — finishing third in the race to replace now-Labor Secretary Marty Walsh.

But less than five months later she entered the attorney general race as the frontrunner and went on to defeat a self-funding labor attorney in a hard-fought Democratic primary. She cruised to victory over her Republican opponent, Jay McMahon, on Tuesday to become the first Black woman elected to statewide office in Massachusetts.

Campbell’s experience with the criminal justice system runs deep: Her father went to prison when she was 5 months old, and her mother died in a car accident while going to visit him. Her twin brother died while in state custody and another sibling has faced charges over rape allegations. It’s a past some candidates would try to bury, but Campbell — who chartered a different course through academic success — has highlighted it.

“For those who have felt unseen, this victory is for you,” a teary-eyed Campbell told supporters Tuesday night. “For those who have felt marginalized, this victory is for you. For those who have felt left out and left behind and undervalued, this victory is for you.”

Charity Clark (Vt.)

Clark is the first female attorney general in the Green Mountain State. The lawyer touted her family’s small-business background and volunteer history as examples of her being ingrained in Vermont’s community during the campaign. She ran on a platform of environmental protections, criminal justice reform, tackling child pornography cases and combating gender-based violence.

SECRETARY OF STATE

Stephanie Thomas (Conn.)

Stephanie Thomas built a career as a small business owner advising nonprofits on strategy and fundraising before flipping a state House district blue in 2020. Now the first-term state representative will be Connecticut’s first Black secretary of state. Thomas ran on expanding access to voting and advocated for the constitutional amendment to allow for early in-person voting that also passed on Tuesday.

Shirley Weber (Calif.)

Shirley Weber became California’s first Black secretary of state last year when Gov. Gavin Newsom appointed her to take over for Alex Padilla, who was tapped to fill Kamala Harris’ Senate seat when she was elevated to the vice presidency. Now Weber has won the job outright.

tREASURER

Erick Russell (Conn.)

The LGBTQ Victory Fund is celebrating Erick Russell as the first openly gay Black person elected to statewide office in the U.S. Russell, a Democratic activist and attorney who specializes in municipal finances, defeated Republican Harry Arora to win Connecticut’s secretary of state race on Tuesday.

“For far too long, people of color and the LGBTQ community have lacked equitable representation in government. Erick shattered this lavender ceiling,” Annise Parker, a former Houston mayor and president and CEO of LGBTQ Victory Fund, said in a statement. “Not only is his win a sharp rebuke of the current wave of homophobia and racism plaguing our country, it’s a moment of inspiration for our community that our political future is brighter than ever.”