Black Republican Candidates Want to Be Seen for More Than Just Their Race

The House Republican Conference could lose all of its Black members after the 2026 midterm elections, but the GOP — after President Donald Trump made inroads with Black Americans in 2024 — has steadily built up a bench of Black candidates the party hopes can win.

Those candidates, however, don’t want to be seen as just “Black Republicans,” but as core pieces of the party’s future.

“I think representation matters. Inclusion in the room matters. The problem is when it’s forced representation only because it’s the color of your skin, that it becomes detrimental, not only to me as an individual but to my community as a whole,” Josh Williams, an Ohio state representative and one of multiple Republicans running to unseat Democratic Rep. Marcy Kaptur, told NOTUS.

“I don’t want to be in the room merely because you want a Black candidate in the room or a Black congressman in the room. I want to be in the room because I deserve to be there,” Williams continued.

Williams was elected to the Ohio House of Representatives in 2022, making him the first Black Republican to be elected to the chamber in 50 years. He was also the first Black person to serve as majority whip in the state House, and now he wants to be the first Black Republican to win federal office in Ohio.

“I got that position not because I’m Black, but in spite of the fact that I’m a Black man inside the GOP,” Williams said.

Reps. Wesley Hunt, Byron Donalds and John James are all running for higher office in November, leaving Rep. Burgess Owens of Utah as the only Black Republican incumbent planning to return the House next year — but even so, he faces an uphill battle for reelection due to redistricting in his state.

Rep. Wesley Hunt speaks at a campaign event in Dallas. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)

Owens was not concerned about the possible lack of Black House Republicans.

“It’s really temporary because you have so many following us, and it will not be an issue,” he said.

But he clarified that it’s not just about having Black members in the conference.

“The key is to have solid conservative representation because our values represent everybody,” Owens said. That, inherently, makes Republicans “a lot more attractive to many Black Americans who have never in the past thought the Republican Party might have been a place to land.”

Republicans’ popularity with Black voters has increased in recent years. Trump won 15% of Black voters in the 2024 election, nearly doubling the 8% he won in 2020, according to the Pew Research Center.

Black support for Democrats has steadily declined since the 95% high it reached when Barack Obama won in 2008: Kamala Harris won 83% of Black voters in 2024; Joe Biden won 87% in 2020; Hillary Clinton won 89% in 2016; and Obama won 93% in 2012.

“Republicans want their vote. We want to represent them better and more effectively, and we’re campaigning hard to win their votes, and I think we’ve gotten better at communicating that,” Rep. Richard Hudson, the chair of House Republicans’ campaign arm, told NOTUS. “I think the gains President Trump made with that demographic are gains that we seek to lock in.”

But does having more Black candidates help the party with voters?

“I don’t know if it’s cause and effect. But that’s a voting bloc that we take seriously,” Hudson said.

Donalds said the increase in Black candidates wasn’t surprising to him, especially as Republicans continued to increase their share of Black support in elections.

“I think people much more are inclined to support, you know, candidates based upon ideas and ideology, as opposed to skin color. And I just think that’s the trajectory where America is going,” he said.

Owens told NOTUS that he believes the wane in Black support for Democrats is a byproduct of how they talk about race, which he said is patronizing to voters of color. He pointed to California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s recent comments in an interview with Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens, who is Black: “I’m like you. I’m no better than you, you know. I’m a 960 SAT guy.” (The moment quickly went viral after Republicans said Newsom’s comments to Dickens were racist. Dickens defended Newsom, and the governor responded on X by saying he was “talking about my lifelong struggle with dyslexia.”)

“I’ve been waiting for this day, when we had enough of a voice,” Owens said. “People realizing that they have been discriminated against by the bigotry of low expectations. That’s one of the worst, worst types of racism, when you look at someone and say, ‘You cannot succeed because of your color, you are a victim because of your color, you can’t think because of your color.’ That is as bad as it gets, and we’re beginning to translate that finally, that it has come from the Democratic Party.”

Black candidates are hoping voters will take that message into consideration.

Amir Hassan, a Navy veteran running to challenge Democratic Rep. Kristen McDonald Rivet, told NOTUS that Democrats “lie that the Republican Party doesn’t care about the Black community, or is not interested in representing the Black community because we have had a lack of members from the Black community or that were Black themselves. It has always been a lie.”

Hassan said that he “never met a Republican” growing up in Flint, a majority-Black city in Michigan’s 8th Congressional District. So when he started doing campaign events in Flint and Saginaw, which also has a large Black population, people were intrigued.

“I tell them, you know, I’m a Republican. You should see how big their eyes get and the excitement,” he said.

It’s unclear whether Trump’s gains with Black voters will translate into success for Black Republican candidates in 2026. Results in many statewide races haven’t been good for the GOP: Winsome Earle-Sears lost the Virginia governor’s race last year; Herschel Walker, who was handpicked by Trump, did not manage to beat Georgia Sen. Raphael Warnock in 2022; and Mark Robinson, who was endorsed by the president, lost the 2024 North Carolina gubernatorial race.

Williams, however, said that having a Black candidate on the ticket could help drive turnout in the midterms and solidify Black voter support for Republicans.

“In a general election, more minority voters, more Black voters, will be prone to be engaged and actually vote in this district, because they’ve been left behind by Marcy Kaptur, and they’ve told me verbatim that they don’t feel representation from her, that they don’t feel that she hears their grievances,” Williams said.

Instead, he continued, “They feel like that when they have a conversation with me, that we may not agree on the outcome or the potential solution for the problem, but that I approach the issue with a general understanding and a sense of empathy that’s rooted in real life experiences, instead of this kind of soft pandering to a minority simply because you want their vote.”