Georgia and Florida both elected a Florida A&M graduate governor. Their politics could not be further apart.

Two Florida A&M University graduates were elected governor on Tuesday, in two different states, on two opposite platforms. Keisha Lance Bottoms won in Georgia and will be its first Black woman governor. Byron Donalds won in Florida, where, as we reported, only 13% of Black voters chose him.

The school that produced both is a historically Black university, and it was not alone on the ballot. Capital B and The Root each counted HBCU graduates among the winners of the 2026 midterms, and the list runs from the governor’s mansions to county courthouses.

Who won

Adrienne Adams, a Spelman College graduate, was elected New York’s lieutenant governor, the first Black woman to hold the office. In Illinois, Donna Miller, a Howard University graduate, won the 2nd Congressional District by a landslide, according to Texas Metro News. Oliver Gilbert III, a Florida A&M graduate, won in Florida’s 24th District, and Nikema Williams, a Talladega College graduate, kept Georgia’s 5th.

Capital B also counted Letitia James, a Howard law graduate, among the winners, as New York’s attorney general. In Washington, Janeese Lewis George, who also studied law at Howard, won the mayor’s race and will be the District’s first new mayor in 12 years.

Why it matters

HBCUs are a small share of American colleges. Their graduates are now the governors of two Southern states, a lieutenant governor, members of Congress and the capital’s mayor. Tuesday’s results are what these schools produce, and any legislature that treats them as an afterthought should look at the list.

The Donalds win is the reminder that an HBCU diploma does not decide a platform. Bottoms ran on Medicaid expansion. Donalds ran on immigration crackdowns and tax cuts, as Capital B noted. The school gave them both a start, and Black voters in each state judged them on what they promised.

That is the argument for funding these schools fully. They do not produce one politics, and they never claimed to. They produce graduates ready to run. Bottoms, Adams, Miller and the rest take office in January.