*Each election cycle, the dialog begins the identical manner. Campaigns announce their outreach. Candidates say our title. They present up at our church buildings, our sorority occasions, our neighborhood gatherings. After which, too typically, they govern like they forgot we existed.
That sample is why the information that was simply launched from the 2026 California Voter Index Baseline Survey stops me chilly. It confirms what Black girls in California have been saying for years: we’re watching, we’re engaged, and we’re not but offered.
Right here’s what the numbers present: roughly one-third of Black girls stay undecided, making it one of many largest response classes about who they’ll help within the June 2026 gubernatorial major. It’s a quantity that ought to shake each marketing campaign headquarters on this state.
Don’t mistake it for apathy.
Let’s be clear: Black girls are planning to vote. On this survey, 80.4% say they may undoubtedly forged a poll in June, and if you embody probably voters, the quantity climbs to roughly 91%. We’re displaying up. The query is whether or not candidates have given us a compelling cause to indicate up for them.
Our 2025 State of Black Ladies in California report which captures the present state of Black girls and ladies throughout this state tells a narrative that explains our measured pause on the poll field. Black girls are main households, elevating youngsters, constructing companies, holding up total communities. We’re California’s spine. And we’re bored with being taken with no consideration.
The Governor’s race issues to Black girls not as political theater, however as lived consequence.
Our analysis tells us what’s actually on the road:
Financial survival. Black girls in California earn roughly 60 cents for each greenback paid to White males. For Black single moms, it’s 56 cents. In 2022, whereas Black girls earned a mean of $54,000, White males have been incomes practically $90,000. These aren’t summary statistics they’re the explanation Black moms have to decide on between hire and childcare. They’re the explanation Black skilled girls are working twice as onerous for half the popularity. And at present charges of change, the wage hole between Black girls and White males received’t shut till 2121.
The following governor of California will both speed up or delay that timeline.
Our Invisible Labor, Seen Struggles report launched in March 2025 surveyed 452 employed Black girls throughout California and located that 56% had skilled discrimination at work, with 70% reporting microaggressions. In 2023, solely 54 Black girls have been promoted for each 100 males, the bottom promotion price of any gender-race group within the state. We’re not failing to advance as a result of we aren’t attempting. It’s as a result of the programs should not constructed to maneuver us ahead.
Over 80% of Black households in California are led by girls who’re the first breadwinners. Black girls are twice as more likely to be unhoused as White girls and Los Angeles County alone, residence to greater than 454,000 Black girls, we’re evicted at practically double the speed of every other group. The following governor will set the housing agenda for California. We have to understand how the subsequent governor plans to deal with these vital disparities.
Black girls in California are 4 to six occasions extra more likely to die from pregnancy-related causes than White girls. Now we have elevated charges of hypertension, stroke, and diabetes pushed by a relentless mixture of racism, poverty, and caregiving burdens. Eighty % of us have medical insurance, and we’re nonetheless sicker than our counterparts as a result of the programs of care weren’t designed with us in thoughts. This isn’t a well being disaster. It’s a justice disaster.
Black girls overwhelmingly voted for Kamala Harris over Donald Trump by a 74.9-point margin. We all know what we reject. The query is what we are going to select. We aren’t selecting anybody. We’re ready to be chosen, genuinely seen, courted with substance, and provided a imaginative and prescient that addresses our precise lives. Our endorsement just isn’t a given. It have to be earned.
On the California Black Ladies’s Collective Empowerment Institute, we now have spent the final a number of years translating Black girls’s lived experiences into coverage language that candidates and lawmakers can truly act on. The roadmap is straightforward.
Candidates who need to earn the belief of Black girls want to indicate up with:
Pay fairness with tooth like obligatory annual pay audits disaggregated by race and gender for firms with 50 or extra staff that embody actual penalties for unaddressed disparities. Wage transparency is a begin. Enforcement is the vacation spot.
Inexpensive housing as a racial justice situation. Housing coverage is Black girls’s coverage. We’d like governors who say that out loud.
Maternal well being funding. Being 4 to six occasions extra more likely to die in childbirth just isn’t a truth of nature. It’s a failure of programs. California ought to lead the nation in closing this hole, not in accepting it.
An actual pipeline to management. Black ladies face a number of the lowest educational success charges within the state. The federal government should put money into that pipeline.
Financial mobility. We’d like expertise, childcare help, mentorship, and a pathway to sustainable employment. A governor who funds that type of infrastructure understands what’s truly at stake.
Black girls should not a monolith, however our calls for are formed by a typical set of realities.
We’re watching. We’re organized. We’re undecided not as a result of we don’t care, however as a result of we care an excessive amount of to settle.
We are going to discover our candidate. I consider Black girls will present up in pressure in June, as we at all times have for our households, for our daughters, for a California that lastly works for all of us.
So, don’t present us your speaking factors. Present us your plan.
In regards to the Writer
Kellie Todd Griffin is the President & CEO of the California Black Ladies’s Collective Empowerment Institute (CABWCEI), founding father of the Black Ladies’s Assume Tank, and creator of Sista Lady @ Work. She can also be a proud member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. Study extra at www.cablackwomenscollective.org.
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