By Kellie Todd Griffin, Special to California Black Media Partners
Every election cycle, the conversation starts the same way. Campaigns announce their outreach. Candidates say our name. They show up at our churches, our sorority events, our community gatherings.
And then, too often, they govern like they forgot we existed.
That pattern is why the data that was just released from the 2026 California Voter Index Baseline Survey stops me cold. It confirms what Black women in California have been saying for years: we are watching, we are engaged, and we are not yet sold.
Here’s what the numbers show: roughly one-third of Black women remain undecided, making it one of the largest response categories about who they’ll support in the June 2026 gubernatorial primary. It is a number that should shake every campaign headquarters in this state.
Do not mistake it for apathy.
Let’s be clear: Black women are planning to vote. In this survey, 80.4% say they will definitely cast a ballot in June, and when you include likely voters, the number climbs to roughly 91%. We are showing up. The question is whether candidates have given us a compelling reason to show up for them.
Our 2025 State of Black Women in California reportwhich captures the current state of Black women and girls across this state tells a story that explains our measured pause at the ballot box. Black women are leading households, raising children, building businesses, holding up entire communities. We are California’s backbone. And we are tired of being taken for granted.
The Governor’s race matters to Black women not as political theater, but as lived consequence.
Our research tells us what’s really on the line:
Economic survival. Black women in California earn approximately 60 cents for every dollar paid to White men. For Black single mothers, it’s 56 cents. In 2022, while Black women earned an average of $54,000, White men were earning nearly $90,000. These aren’t abstract statistics they are the reason Black mothers have to choose between rent and childcare. They are the reason Black professional women are working twice as hard for half the recognition. And at current rates of change, the wage gap between Black women and White men won’t close until 2121.
The next governor of California will either accelerate or delay that timeline.
Our Invisible Labor, Visible Struggles report released in March 2025 surveyed 452 employed Black women across California and found that 56% had experienced discrimination at work, with 70% reporting microaggressions. In 2023, only 54 Black women were promoted for every 100 men, the lowest promotion rate of any gender-race group in the state. We are not failing to advance because we aren’t trying. It’s because the systems are not built to move us forward.
Over 80% of Black households in California are led by women who are the primary breadwinners. Black women are twice as likely to be unhoused as White women and Los Angeles County alone, home to more than 454,000 Black women, we are evicted at nearly double the rate of any other group. The next governor will set the housing agenda for California. We need to know how the next governor plans to address these critical disparities.
Black women in California are 4 to 6 times more likely to die from pregnancy-related causes than White women. We have elevated rates of hypertension, stroke, and diabetes driven by a relentless combination of racism, poverty, and caregiving burdens. Eighty percent of us have health insurance, and we are still sicker than our counterparts because the systems of care were not designed with us in mind. This is not a health crisis. It is a justice crisis.
Black women overwhelmingly voted for Kamala Harris over Donald Trump by a 74.9-point margin. We know what we reject. The question is what we will choose. We aren’t choosing anyone. We are waiting to be chosen, genuinely seen, courted with substance, and offered a vision that addresses our actual lives. Our endorsement is not a given. It must be earned.
At the California Black Women’s Collective Empowerment Institute, we have spent the last several years translating Black women’s lived experiences into policy language that candidates and lawmakers can actually act on. The roadmap is simple.
Candidates who want to earn the trust of Black women need to show up with:
Pay equity with teeth like mandatory annual pay audits disaggregated by race and gender for companies with 50 or more employees that include real penalties for unaddressed disparities. Salary transparency is a start. Enforcement is the destination.
Affordable housing as a racial justice issue. Housing policy is Black women’s policy. We need governors who say that out loud.
Maternal health investment. Being 4 to 6 times more likely to die in childbirth is not a fact of nature. It is a failure of systems. California should lead the nation in closing this gap, not in accepting it.
A real pipeline to leadership. Black girls face some of the lowest academic success rates in the state. The government must invest in that pipeline.
Economic mobility. We need skills, childcare support, mentorship, and a pathway to sustainable employment. A governor who funds that kind of infrastructure understands what’s actually at stake.
Black women are not a monolith, but our demands are shaped by a common set of realities.
We are watching. We are organized. We are undecided not because we don’t care, but because we care too much to settle.
We will find our candidate. I believe Black women will show up in force in June, as we always have for our families, for our daughters, for a California that finally works for all of us.
So, don’t show us your talking points. Show us your plan.
About the Author
Kellie Todd Griffin is the President & CEO of the California Black Women’s Collective Empowerment Institute (CABWCEI), founder of the Black Women’s Think Tank, and author of Sista Girl @ Work. She is also a proud member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. Learn more at www.cablackwomenscollective.org.
