CA Black Candidates Running for Congress

California ’22 Primary Election: Black Candidates Running for US House of Representatives

Joe W. Bowers Jr. | California Black Media

Election offices have begun sending out vote-by-mail ballots for the June 7, 2022, California Primary. Statewide, voters will discover that Black candidates for United States House of Representative seats are over-represented on their ballots.

California Black Media (CBM) is reporting that 18 Black candidates are running for 14 US House seats. Eleven are registered as Democrats and seven are running as Republicans. Nine are women and nine are men.

Although African Americans are 5.8% of California residents, Black candidates are on ballots for 26.9% of the US House seats.

California’s delegation to the US House of Representatives will have 52 members in the next Congress. While it is still the largest delegation, one seat was lost due to a decline in population count from the 2020 US census. Congressional district population following the 2020 census is about 761,169 people.

A consequence of losing a US House seat is that district boundaries have been redrawn by the independent California Citizens Redistricting Commission (CCRC) and many district numbers have been reassigned. For example, Rep. Barbara Lee, one of the three Black members of the California delegation, currently represents House District 13 and is running to represent District 12. However, the district numbers for the other Black representatives, Maxine Waters (District 43), who is running for re-election, and Karen Bass (District 37), who has decided to run for mayor of Los Angeles have no... Continue Reading Here