Governors

Companies and special interest groups with some of the diciest issues expected to land on California’s next governor’s desk are among the top financial backers of Democrat Xavier Becerra, the gubernatorial front runner.

Money from Big Tech, the healthcare industry, labor unions and tribes helped propel Becerra’s bid for governor, which languished at the outset then took off just months before the June primary. All are major players in national and state politics and have a major financial stake on the policies of California’s next governor.

Meta, which has contributed nearly $1.2 million to groups backing Becerra’s campagin, has faced mounting scrutiny by lawmakers and the courts. The Menlo Park-based company, which operates social media and communication platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, just agreed to a landmark $17.1 billion settlement to resolve multi-state claims that its apps endanger children.

The state Legislature in August also passed a measure to bar social media platforms from providing an “addictive feature” to lure children, as well as bills to shield Californians from threats posed by the boom in artificial intelligence and data centers. The fate of these measures is now in the hands of Gov. Gavin Newsom, and the next governor likely will have to decide whether approve even stricter controls on Big Tech.

Meta is among eight donors that wrote seven-figure checks supporting Becerra’s gubernatrial campaign, with most of he money funneled to independent committees backing the Democrat that are not allowed to legally coordinate with the candidate. Campaigns often find back doors to do so.

Former state Sen. Steve Glazer, a Democrat who ran Jerry Brown’s successful 2010 gubernatorial campaign, said such spending is not surprising.

“Look, millions and billions of dollars are at stake, and the governor is the central point for all of that in California,” Glazer said. “It’s not a gamble anymore. You’re not picking a winner or a loser, right? So the floodgates open up for a runaway winner like Xavier Becerra.”

Becerra, the former secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and a longtime congressman, won one of the top two spots in the chaotic June primary. Republican Steve Hilton, a conservative media commentator and strategist who was endorsed by President Trump, won the other slot to advance to the Nov. 3 election. Becerra is considered a heavy favorite to win, given that Democratic voters in California outnumber Republicans nearly 2 to 1.

Becerra has the financial edge in the race, raising at least $30 million while also receiving significant support from the independent committees. Donors have contributed $48.8 million to Becerra’s campaign committee as well as outside efforts supporting his bid, according to a Times analysis of contributions through Sept. 3.

A Becerra spokesman said that although the campaign welcomed support from any donor, he would not weigh their contributions as he makes policy decisions if elected

“Xavier Becerra is laser-focused on making California work for working people — lowering costs, building housing, and making this state affordable again,” said Jonathan Underland, a spokesman for the Democrat. “Anyone willing to stand with us in that fight is welcome to join it, and we won’t hesitate to challenge anyone who gets in the way of that goal.”

His GOP rival raked in $18.8 million, including a $90,100 contribution from the candidate himself. Hilton’s top donors are billionaires and business executives including manufacturer Donald Friese and his wife Andrea, Silicon Valley billionaire Tim Draper, former Fox Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch, Google co-founder Sergey Brin, Los Angeles real estate magnate Geoffrey Palmer and the founder of defense contractor Anduril Industries, Palmer Luckey.

Executives and employees at Lighthouse Worldwide Solutions Inc., a company that makes contamination monitoring systems, contributed more than $474,000 to Hilton’s campaign.

A small handful of donors gave to both candidates. Uber and its employees gave nearly $42,000 to Hilton, while the company and an affiliated political action committee spent $1,039,200 supporting Becerra. Vlad Tenev, founder of the financial trading platform Robinhood, gave $289,000 to Becerra and $15,000 to Hilton.

A committee ostensibly established to oppose Hilton, an effort that effectively propped him up among Republican voters before the June primary, raised $2.5 million through large donations from the California Nurses Assn., the Service Employees International Union, the Democratic Governors Assn. and wealthy businessman Bill Bloomfield, an unsuccessful congressional candidate and Republican-turned-Democrat.

Hilton said Becerra’s financial backers are unsurprising and illustrate the “corruption” created by one-party rule in Sacramento.

“All these businesses and organizations assume he’s going to be the next governor, so they’re trying to bribe him,” Hilton said in an interview. “You can call it donations if you want, but it’s actually legalized bribery. … Big business and special interests are shoveling cash into his mouth in the hope that they can bribe him to do their bidding.”

Becerra, who served in public office for nearly 35 years, has a long history of support from powerful industries, labor unions and others with business before the government. During his 24 years in Congress, donors spent roughly $11 million supporting Becerra, according to the Times analysis and Open Secrets, a nonprofit, nonpartisan tracker of campaign fundraising. While he served as California attorney general for four years, contributors spent nearly $9.4 million backing him.

Among the former Biden Cabinet secretary’s top financial backers in the governor’s race are labor unions, healthcare groups, tech companies and Native American tribes that own some of the state’s splashiest casinos. All will probably be affected by decisions made by the next governor.

The Laborers’ International Union of North America and local affiliates and political arms, focused on infrastructure projects and the creation of union jobs, has contributed nearly $3.2 million. A committee associated with the California Assn. of Realtors that is focused on housing, real estate policy and property rights has spent nearly $2.8 million backing Becerra.

The Pechanga Band of Indians chipped in more than $2.3 million to efforts supporting Becerra at a time that gaming issues continue to be scrutinized.

A Pechanga representative said the tribe’s leader was unavailable due to travel but pointed to a statement he made before the primary.

“Secretary Becerra has stood with Indian Country for decades and understands Tribal sovereignty. When tribal healthcare was on the line, he was there,” said Tribal Chairman Mark Macarro. “This experience comes from a lifetime of public service, not a checkbook.”

The California Medical Assn. has spent nearly $1.5 million backing Becerra at a time of deep impending federal healthcare funding cuts and efforts by the state to backfill that lost financial support.

Dr. René Bravo, president of the California Medical Assn., which represents more than 50,000 physicians, said their spending was spurred by the their belief that Becerra is the best candidate to take on impending federal healthcare funding cuts that will harm millions of Californians access to care.

“Xavier Becerra understands healthcare and the challenges facing patients and physicians. The next governor will make critical decisions on MediCal, the physician workforce, affordability and access to care,” Bravo said. “We’re investing in this race because those decisions will directly affect California patients and physicians.”

Meta declined to comment on its contributions, and the Realtors and the Laborers did not respond to requests for comment.

Becerra, asked about the Realtors’ large donations supporting his campaign, noted that most of the money was contributed to committees outside his control. But he argued that his policy priorities have long been clear, including when he was an afterthought in the gubernatorial race.

“I was pretty clear in the primary, where I wasn’t getting as much support from a lot of different folks,” Becerra said Fridayat a news conference in north Long Beach supporting Proposition 1, a proposed $11.25-billion bond measure on the November ballot to boost affordable housing construction around the state.

“What I will tell you is this: Take a look at my record. Take a look at what I’ve said, and rather than look to inflated promises, look at what I’ve done in my record,” Becerra said, standing in front of Laborers’ International Union of North America members clad in orange safety vests. “And I will tell you, I have built, not just as a public servant, but when I was wearing myself that orange vest as a construction worker, as a laborer for Local 185, in my younger years, I was out there helping build. And so what we’re going to do is we’re going to do what we need to do, regardless what the voices say. We’re doing it because the people demand it.”

Fossil fuel and renewable energy firms have also supported Becerra, notably Chevron and affiliated groups and employees, spent more than $1.1 million boosting his bid — money that his Democratic rivals in the governor’s race and other critics, including climate activist Jane Fonda, pounced upon before the primary.

Billionaire hedge fund founder Tom Steyer deployed mobile billboards touting Becerra saying “You need Chevron, I need Chevron,” a clip from a longer comment about how every Californian doesn’t drive an electric car.

Chevron did not respond to a request for comment.

Earlier this year, Becerra was a single-digit polling afterthought in the crowded race to replace Newsom, who is termed-out. But after a dizzying primary that included a potential front-runner, then-Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Dublin), dropping out amid allegations of rape and sexual assault, Becerra took the lead in the Democratic field and placed first in the June election.

Becerra, 68, has a long career in elected office, serving two years in the state Assembly, 24 years in Congress, four years as California’s attorney general, and four years in the Biden administration.

While he was in Congress, donations to his federal campaign committee grew dramatically, according to an analysis of Federal Election Commission documents provided by Open Secrets.

In the early 1990s, Becerra was receiving donations in the low six figures, but by the end of his time in Congress, he was receiving well over $1 million during each two-year electoral cycle.

Finance, insurance and real estate firms and trade groups, such as Charles Schwab, the National Assn. of Insurance and Financial Advisors, the New York Life Insurance Co., Merrill Lynch and Pacific Life Insurance, were major supporters of Becerra, who served on the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, which regulates taxation. Such donors contributed more than $2.6 million to his congressional bids, according to Open Secrets.

Healthcare interests came in a close second, contributing more than $2.4 million to his congressional campaigns in the years before he was nominated and confirmed as Biden’s secretary of Health and Human Services, according to Open Secrets. Among the groups that supported Becerra’s federal campaigns included organizations representing physical therapists, anesthesiologists, podiatrists, assisted living and long term care facilities, and dietitians. While in Congress, Becerra was a strong advocate and supporter of the Affordable Care Act, a landmark healthcare overhaul championed by former President Obama.

Labor donated more than $1.7 million to Becerra’s congressional bids, a trend that continued when he ran for attorney general. Unions representing laborers, electrical workers, pipe fitters and firefighters donated $1 million, according to the Times analysis. The number has spiked to $6.3 million for Becerra’s gubernatorial bid.

Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher, president of the powerful California Labor Federation, said Becerra’s personal and political resume are significant at a time when the next governor will need to tackle artificial intelligence and the potential resulting job losses, the state’s volatile budget and federal funding cuts to MediCal and Medicare.

“He comes from a union family,” she said. “He has a long history of being on the right side of working people in a lot of different roles — in Congress, as attorney general and as secretary of Health and Human Services.”

California lawmakers have approved a bill that seeks to throw a lifeline to the state’s struggling journalism organizations.

Assembly Bill 2222, which would create refundable tax credits for California local news organizations based on the number of journalists they employ, joins a litany of bills on Gov. Gavin Newsom’s desk.

The state Senate passed the bill on Sunday and the Assembly narrowly approved its amendments on Monday to send the bill to the governor’s desk, with some Republican lawmakers pulling their previous “yes” votes.

The approval comes just as the Legislature is set to adjourn its two-year session early this week.

The bill, introduced by Assemblymember Christopher M. Ward (D-San Diego) would work by assigning a “job retention credit” of $20,000 per journalist for up to five positions, and after that $15,000 for every additional journalist. Part-time positions would be awarded half-credits. It also stacks an additional $15,000 credit for each new hire, to incentivize expanding journalist head counts.

“This measure is a safety net for news outlets on the verge of closure,” said former state Sen. Steve Glazer, who is a proponent of the bill and during his Senate term pushed similar legislation.

Proponents may face an uphill battle persuading Newsom to sign the bill, which creates a unique revenue stream to pay for the program. Newsom typically spurns laws that make changes to the state budget after those fiscal discussions conclude in the first half of the calendar year.

AB 2222 represents the latest attempt by California lawmakers to bolster the news business, with governments globally discussing similar efforts. Canada implemented newsroom payroll tax credits in 2019 amounting to about $13,750 per journalist in an eligible newsroom.

AB 2222 would create the largest relief plan in the U.S. to date, with the state tax board estimating it would make more than $40 million available to the state’s newsrooms annually.

The California Taxpayers Assn. and groups representing business interests such as the California Chamber of Commerce opposed the bill because it raises taxes on employers.

The governor’s finance office issued an analysis opposing the bill for failing to outline a cap on tax credits and for seeking to subsidize existing jobs rather than encouraging the creation of more journalism jobs.

The bill is supported by the California News Publishers Assn., of which the Los Angeles Times is a member.

Newsom has until Sept. 30 to sign or veto bills.

WASHINGTON — Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton swept the Southern states in Super Tuesday’s Democratic presidential voting, including delegate-rich Texas and Florida, re-establishing himself as the front-runner for his party’s nomination.

Former Massachusetts Sen. Paul E. Tsongas, Clinton’s principal rival, had his chief success in his home state, which he won easily as expected. He also won the Rhode Island primary and the caucuses in Delaware.

But Tsongas did no better than second in the Southern states, including Florida, where he had made his biggest commitment of time and resources and which was generally viewed as the most significant test of the day for him and Clinton. In addition to Florida and Texas, Clinton came in first in the primaries in Mississippi, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Louisiana, and he won the caucuses in Missouri.

The victories Tuesday brought Clinton 418 delegates, contrasted with 208 for Tsongas and 23 for former California Gov. Edmund G. (Jerry) Brown Jr. Clinton started the race with 275 delegates, twice what Tsongas had. The eventual nominee will need a minimum of 2,145 delegates.

“I must say, it is only tonight that I fully understand why they call this Super Tuesday,” Clinton told cheering supporters in Chicago, where he arrived to launch his drive for primaries next Tuesday in Illinois and Michigan. “From Florida to Texas and all states in between, people opened their hearts to Hillary (his wife) and to me.”

For his part, Tsongas put a brave face on the results. “We’re on our way to the White House,” he said at a victory rally in his hometown of Lowell, Mass. He cited a Washington Post-ABC poll published Tuesday that showed him beating President Bush by 5 percentage points in a trial heat, 3 points more than Clinton’s margin over Bush.

Brown had his best showings Tuesday in Massachusetts, Mississippi and Oklahoma, running second in those states.

“This crusade rolls forward,” Brown declared Tuesday night at a United Auto Workers union hall in Romulus, Mich., a suburb of Detroit. “Hey, governing elite, watch out.

“I think I’m a lot closer to the heart and soul of this party” than the other candidates, he claimed. “I’ve got as good a chance as anybody. But this is a campaign that builds week by week. We’ve already moved from the margin to the center.

“We’re getting Tom Harkin’s vote now.” Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin’s role in the campaign as the spokesman for traditional Democratic liberalism ended this week when he dropped out of the race.

All told, 783 delegates–more than one-third the total required for nomination–were at stake in contests waged in 11 states, from Hawaii to Rhode Island. But seven of them were in Dixie or on its borders, which gave the day its special cast and gave Clinton an advantage he fully exploited.

A television network exit poll showed Clinton taking 68% of the vote among native-born Southerners, contrasted with 19% for Tsongas and 8% for Brown.

Once again, as in the Georgia and South Carolina primaries last week, blacks made a big contribution to Clinton’s victory. He got about 80% of the black vote across the South, according to network exit polls, contrasted with 59% of the white vote.

A Times exit poll in Florida showed that voters picked change, compassion and agreement on the issues as the main reasons that influenced their choice for President. Clinton won the support of the first two of these groups soundly and split the third evenly with Tsongas.

Tsongas appeared to have been hurt by Clinton’s charges that he was prepared to tamper with cost-of-living increases for Social Security beneficiaries. About one-fourth of those interviewed in The Times poll said that issue had influenced them, and three-fifths of that group backed Clinton.

Even on this day of triumph, concern over Clinton’s controversial draft status during the Vietnam War cast a shadow. Of Southern Democratic voters polled by the networks, 20% said this issue made them think less favorably of Clinton, although one-third of these voted for him anyway.

By contrast, in Florida, the Times poll showed that Tsongas took the votes of those interested in a candidate whose ethics they do not doubt, whom they believe they can trust, who has convictions and who has values like their own.

These answers appeared to reflect not only their confidence in Tsongas, but also their misgivings about Clinton because of the draft controversy and earlier allegations that he had been unfaithful to his wife. Those charges had damaged his campaign in New Hampshire, when polls had him far in front of the field.

Clinton attempted to address this problem Tuesday night in his victory speech in Chicago.

“The people of the South heard the worst about me but they saw the best,” he said. “They know that the true measure of character in politics can never be perfection, because, if it were, no one could pass. The true measure is genuine commitment that lasts day in and day out, through failures and disappointment and defeat and setback.”

Tsongas, who was outspent and who many thought was outmaneuvered in the day’s battle, sounded a defiant note.

“There are those who believe the American people are not intelligent, that you can be Santa Claus, that you can pander and give middle-class tax cuts,” he said, sounding one of his favorite themes at his Lowell rally. “I’m going to tell you something, Bill Clinton, you’re not going to pander your way into the White House as long as I’m around.”

Brown also sounded as if he had just begun to fight.

“I will tell you that I have a better chance than my two opponents” of getting the nomination, he told ABC News interviewer Peter Jennings. “Both of them are fatally flawed. They don’t represent the majority of who the Democratic Party is. I do. That’s my background.

“It’s hard to get the message out. But as we do, the crowds are going now from the hundreds to the thousands.”

In the frantic days of campaigning that preceded Tuesday’s day of decision, the contrasting objectives of the three Democratic contenders reflected the differences in their prospects and resources.

For Clinton, the balloting presented the opportunity to take a giant step forward in the delegate race and to gain momentum for next week’s critical contests in Illinois and Michigan.

“It’s always been the case that we had more money and more organization than anybody else,” Craig Smith, Clinton’s deputy campaign manager, said on the eve of the balloting. “Our strategy has been to go in and win as many states as we can and roll up a big delegate margin.”

That is exactly what Clinton did Tuesday throughout the South.

Perhaps just as important as these tangible assets in helping Clinton was the region’s demography. It created an environment more receptive to Clinton’s economic message–centered on his call for a small tax cut for middle-class families–than Tsongas’ doctrine of relying mainly on tax incentives for business to generate growth.

“The clarity of choice between Clinton and Tsongas on economic policy works to our advantage in the South more than in states like Maryland and New Hampshire,” where Tsongas won, said David Wilhelm, Clinton’s campaign manager. “There are more middle-income voters and more working families.”

Under these circumstances, the Super Tuesday confrontation represented mainly an exercise in damage control for Tsongas. Seeking to minimize the impact of defeat, the candidate and his managers conceded the outcome well in advance.

They set their goal as finishing a “strong second” everywhere, particularly in Florida, Super Tuesday’s most competitive battleground. And they pointed to what they asserted would be more positive results elsewhere in the country next week.

“Once Super Tuesday is over, he (Clinton) has to go into the rest of the country, and we’ve done better there,” said Tsongas campaign manager Dennis Kanin, citing his candidate’s victories in New Hampshire and Maryland.

As for Brown, the self-styled candidate of protest, the balloting offered a chance to enhance the credibility his candidacy gained with victories in Colorado and Nevada. Waging his guerrilla style of political warfare from Dixie to New England, Brown sometimes seemed mainly a threat to Tsongas’ support, particularly when he appealed for the vote of environmentalists by demanding a ban on ozone-threatening products.

But Brown also sought to make inroads in Clinton’s backing among minorities, telling a rally of Latinos in El Paso, “You know you’re being ripped off, lied to, shined on.”

Here is a brief look at how the contest took shape in the biggest battlegrounds:

FLORIDA: 148 delegates.

Tsongas was drawn into making his biggest Super Tuesday commitment of time and resources here mainly because of demographics–the presence of more expatriate Northerners, more suburbanites and more upper-income voters than anywhere else in the South. Those characteristics have defined Tsongas voters in past primaries.

Recent political history also seemed encouraging. In the last two Democratic presidential campaigns, Florida has been won by non-Southern candidates who, like Tsongas, won the New Hampshire primary–former Colorado Sen. Gary Hart in 1984 and former Massachusetts Gov. Michael S. Dukakis in 1988.

But as Tsongas strategists soon realized, circumstances were more favorable for Hart–who was running against another non-Southerner, former Vice President Walter F. Mondale–and for Dukakis–who had financial and organizational assets that in the 1992 contest are possessed by Clinton.

Clinton’s operation had daily polling to guide it. By contrast, conceded Rob Schroth, Tsongas’ state coordinator, “The only way I can find out what is going on is by talking to voters, to reporters and to the Clinton people.”

More important, Clinton strategists contend, Tsongas hurt his own cause. Instead of concentrating solely on his theme of economic revival, they point out, he spent much of the past few days attacking Clinton, calling the Arkansas governor “cynical and unprincipled.” He also was forced to deal with Clinton’s attacks on him for favoring a gasoline tax, for allegedly being insufficiently supportive of Israel and for supposedly being willing to tamper with Social Security cost-of-living allowances.

“He got off his message for three days and it hurt him,” said Jeff Eller, Clinton’s state coordinator. Kanin concedes that Tsongas’ shift in emphasis may have undercut his message but asserts that his candidate had no choice but to hit back at Clinton. “What Clinton was doing was attacking him all over Florida on whatever issue appealed most in that area,” Kanin said.

TEXAS: 196 delegates.

Clinton helped himself by coming to Texas early and often, as well as by capitalizing on friendships in the state that go back more than 20 years. “He’s paid a lot of attention to this state,” said George Christian, an Austin political consultant and onetime aide to former President Lyndon B. Johnson. “He’s here every time you turn around.”

Because of that, Clinton has lined up an impressive list of endorsements from elected and party officials and from leaders of key interest groups.

“He’s got the who’s who of the Mexican community and the who’s who of the black community on his side,” said George Shipley, a Democratic consultant who guided Texas Gov. Ann Richard’s campaign to victory in 1990.

One influential group, the Texas Mexican-American Democrats, not only endorsed Clinton, but also mailed out 200,000 letters to Mexican-American voters urging them to cast their ballots for the Arkansas governor.

Tsongas campaigned here for only two days, and his late-starting organization seemed to have relied at least as much on misgivings about Clinton as on Tsongas’ own virtues to get support.

Clinton “has impressive financial assets, but he has heavy personal liabilities,” said Texas Railroad Commissioner Robert Kreuger, Tsongas’ state chairman.

The personal contrast with Clinton did appear to help Tsongas win some votes. After hearing Tsongas speak at a rally at the Alamo last week, Sylvia Jiminez, a San Antonio accountant, praised his economic message but said pointedly, “Bill Clinton is too much glitz.”

SOUTHERN PRIMARIES: Clinton was helped by a big edge in endorsements from prominent Democrats in the rest of the South. Tennessee, with 68 delegates, was the only state in which Tsongas campaigned, aside from Texas and Florida. Only Brown made a significant attempt to compete in Mississippi, with 39 delegates. In Oklahoma, with 45 delegates, Tsongas failed to get on the ballot because of a technical slip-up by his staff, leaving second place to Brown.

Staff writers Cathleen Decker, David Lauter, J. Michael Kennedy and Marilyn Yaquinto contributed to this story.

RELATED STORIES, PICTURES: A12-14

Super Tuesday Vote

Here are the top finishers in Super Tuesday’s key states:

DEMOCRATS Clinton Tsongas Brown % of vote in 1. Massachusetts (primary) 11 67 14 83 2. Rhode Island (primary) 21 53 19 100 3. Delaware (caucus) 21 30 19 100 4. Florida (primary) 51 34 12 92 5. Tennessee (primary) 67 19 8 99 6. Mississippi (primary) 73 8 10 94 7. Louisiana (primary) 69 11 7 99 8. Missouri (caucus) 61 6 4 90 9. Oklahoma (primary) 70 — 17 99 10. Texas (primary) 66 19 8 78 11. Hawaii (caucus) — — — —

GOP Bush Buchanan Duke % of vote in 1. Massachusetts (primary) 66 28 2 90 2. Rhode Island (primary) 63 32 2 100 3. Delaware (caucus) — — — — 4. Florida (primary) 69 31 — 92 5. Tennessee (primary) 73 22 3 99 6. Mississippi (primary) 72 17 11 93 7. Louisiana (primary) 62 27 9 95 8. Missouri (caucus) — — — — 9. Oklahoma (primary) 70 27 3 99 10. Texas (primary) 70 24 3 76 11. Hawaii (caucus) — — — —

All numbers are percentages. Complete results, A12

Super Tuesday Roundup

Here are the latest results from Tuesday’s presidential contests. PRIMARIES Texas DEMOCRATS 78% of precincts reporting

Dele- Vote % gates Bill Clinton 819,554 66 97 Paul E. Tsongas 230,607 19 28 Jerry Brown 93,657 8 2 REPUBLICANS 76% of precincts reporting Dele- Vote % gates George Bush 425,588 70 121 Patrick Buchanan 143,829 24 0 David Duke 15,723 3 0 Uncommitted 18,259 3 0 Florida DEMOCRATS 92% of precincts reporting Dele- Vote % gates Bill Clinton 536,088 51 87 Paul E. Tsongas 360,339 34 58 Jerry Brown 131,267 12 3 REPUBLICANS 92% of precincts reporting Dele- Vote % gates George Bush 554,173 69 97 Patrick Buchanan 254,150 31 0 Massachusetts DEMOCRATS 83% of precincts reporting Dele- Vote % gates Paul E. Tsongas 443,150 67 88 Jerry Brown 94,483 14 6 Bill Clinton 70,480 11 0 Uncommitted 10,114 2 0 REPUBLICANS 87% of precincts reporting Dele- Vote % gates George Bush 149,247 66 26 Patrick Buchanan 63,124 28 11 David Duke 4,785 2 0 Uncommitted 8,618 4 1 Tennessee DEMOCRATS 99% of precincts reporting Dele- Vote % gates Bill Clinton 211,488 67 56 Paul E. Tsongas 60,662 19 12 Jerry Brown 25,415 8 0 Uncommitted 12,217 4 0 REPUBLICANS 99% of precincts reporting Dele- Vote % gates George Bush 177,173 73 23 Patrick Buchanan 54,328 22 10 David Duke 7,662 3 0 Uncommitted 5,043 2 0 Louisiana DEMOCRATS 99% of precincts reporting Dele- Vote % gates Bill Clinton 259,731 69 59 Paul E. Tsongas 41,790 11 1 Jerry Brown 24,925 7 0 REPUBLICANS 94% of precincts reporting Dele- Vote % gates George Bush 75,346 62 26 Patrick Buchanan 32,484 27 5 David Duke 10,438 9 1 Oklahoma DEMOCRATS 99% of precincts reporting Dele- Vote % gates Bill Clinton 288,031 70 38 Jerry Brown 68,432 17 7 REPUBLICANS 98% of precincts reporting Dele- Vote % gates George Bush 147,426 70 34 Patrick Buchanan 56,234 27 0 David Duke 5,474 3 0 Mississippi DEMOCRATS 94% of precincts reporting Dele- Vote % gates Bill Clinton 138,777 73 39 Jerry Brown 18,222 10 0 Paul E. Tsongas 15,093 8 0 Uncommitted 11,642 6 0 REPUBLICANS 92% of precincts reporting Dele- Vote % gates George Bush 104,065 72 33 Patrick Buchanan 24,320 17 0 David Duke 15,516 11 0 Rhode Island DEMOCRATS 100% of precincts reporting Dele- Vote % gates Paul E. Tsongas 26,875 53 13 Bill Clinton 10,729 21 6 Jerry Brown 9,519 19 3 Uncommitted 689 1 0 REPUBLICANS 100% of precincts reporting Dele- Vote % gates George Bush 9,911 63 10 Patrick Buchanan 5,012 32 5 David Duke 327 2 0 Uncommitted 440 3 0 CAUCUSES Missouri DEMOCRATS 90% of precincts reporting Dele- Vote % gates Bill Clinton 306 61 34 Paul E. Tsongas 30 6 2 Jerry Brown 20 4 0 Uncommitted 143 29 30 Delaware DEMOCRATS 100% of precincts reporting Dele- Vote % gates Paul E. Tsongas 48 30 5 Bill Clinton 33 21 3 Jerry Brown 31 19 2 Uncommitted 47 30 4 Hawaii DEMOCRATS 0% of precincts reporting Dele- Vote % gates Bill Clinton xxx xx x Paul E. Tsongas xxx xx x Jerry Brown xxx xx x Uncommitted xxx xx x

* Republican caucuses in Missouri, Delaware and Hawaii will be held in the coming months.

ORLANDO, Fla. — 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 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.

A challenge for Black politicians, even more so than reaching the U.S. Senate

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.

Democrats and Republicans talk about ‘identity politics’ differently

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.”

Race shapes many decisions, but not all of them

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.”

Barrow and Sloan write for the Associated Press. Sloan reported from Washington.