By Kellie Todd Griffin | California Black Women’s Collective PAC
Every election cycle, the routine is the same. Candidates show up at our churches, our sorority events, our community forums. They say our name. They tell us they see us. They tell us they need us.
And then they govern like they forgot we existed.
Black women in California are the most reliable voting bloc in the Democratic Party. We are the cultural and economic engine of communities across this state. We are mothers, caregivers, business owners, organizers, and the keepers of our families’ histories. And we are tired of being courted in campaign season and forgotten in governing season.
That is exactly why the California Black Women’s Collective PAC’s endorsement process for the 2026 Governor’s race was different.
Before we sat down with a single candidate, we sent each of them a briefing memo grounded in our research. Data on Black women’s wages. Data on maternal health. Data on housing instability, caregiving burdens, criminal justice exposure, business ownership, and political representation. We did not want anyone walking into our interview room performing. We wanted to know who had done the reading. We wanted to know who could engage the data. We wanted to know who could speak to the lived realities behind the numbers.
Tom Steyer did the reading. And then some.
He Engaged the Data. He Named the Realities.
When we asked Tom about the economic vulnerability of Black women in California, he did not deflect to generic uplift language. He spoke specifically. About the wage gap. About the maternal mortality crisis that disproportionately kills Black mothers. About the wealth chasm that leaves Black women with a fraction of the assets held by their white male counterparts.
He spoke about Black girls. About the pipeline failures in schools, in healthcare, in mental health systems, that shape their futures before they ever reach adulthood.
He referenced our data. He named our communities. He saw us.
That alone would have been notable. But let’s be honest: endorsements are not built on a good interview. They are built on a record.
And Tom Steyer’s record is one of the most substantial investments in economic mobility, civic engagement, and racial justice infrastructure of any candidate in this race.
In 2007, Tom Steyer and Kat Taylor founded Beneficial State Bank. Not as a profit play. As a community development financial institution explicitly designed to extend credit and capital to communities that traditional banking has historically locked out.
One hundred percent of the bank’s economic rights are owned by nonprofit organizations. Profits are reinvested into the communities the bank serves, with at least 60% of its lending directed to low-to-moderate income communities.
Black women are among the fastest-growing groups of entrepreneurs in California. We are also among the most chronically underfunded. We know what predatory lending looks like, because we have lived under it. We also know what real capital access looks like, because we have seen what happens when it appears.
Tom built an institution that does the second.
Through NextGen America, the organization Tom founded in 2013, he has spent more than a decade investing in voter engagement infrastructure. NextGen has registered more than 1.6 million young voters, with a deliberate focus on Black and Latino youth. In 2020 alone, NextGen reached more than 10.5 million young people and helped mobilize 4.7 million to the ballot box, contributing to the highest youth voter turnout in modern American history.
That kind of sustained investment matters.
Black political power is not built in the final days of a campaign. It is built year-round, in community, with consistent resources. Tom has put real money behind that proposition for more than a decade, long before it became politically convenient to do so.
Look at what Tom has actually done with his resources and his platform.
He led the campaign for Proposition 39, which closed a corporate tax loophole and has directed hundreds of millions of dollars into California schools and clean energy projects. Schools that serve our children.
He took on Big Tobacco to fund cancer research and prevent teen smoking. A public health fight that mattered directly to Black communities that the tobacco industry has targeted for generations.
He campaigned on forgiving certain categories of student loan debt, cracking down on predatory student loan servicers, and made a ten-year, $125 billion investment in Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) a centerpiece of his 2020 presidential platform. Because he understood that Black graduates carry disproportionately heavy debt loads. Because he understood that HBCUs are foundational to building Black professional and economic power.
And on reparations, the issue that exposes which candidates are willing to walk through fire and which are not, Tom Steyer was unafraid.
In our interview he continued on his commitment to support reparations for the descendants of enslaved Blacks in California, which he committed to during his 2020 presidential race, when most Democratic candidates were tiptoeing around the question. He took political hits for it. He said it anyway.
California is at an inflection point. We are facing an affordability crisis, a housing crisis, a maternal health crisis, and a democracy under sustained federal assault. Black women and girls sit at the intersection of every one of these emergencies.
We do not need a governor who acknowledges that reality in a campaign speech. We need a governor who has spent years building the institutions, funding the organizing, and taking the unpopular positions that the moment requires.
Tom Steyer is not a perfect candidate. No candidate is. And we know there are things that we didn’t agree with. But when our PAC evaluates a leader, we ask three questions: Have you done the work? Can you speak to our reality with specificity? Will you fight, on day one, for the policies that move Black women and girls from survival to power?
On all three questions, Tom Steyer earned this endorsement.
He saw us. He heard us. His record, his bank, his long-term investment in voter engagement, his unflinching support for reparations, his fight on student debt, his commitment to environmental justice, proves he understood what we were saying long before we walked into the room.
The California Black Women’s Collective PAC is proud to endorse Tom Steyer for Governor of California.
We’ve done the work of holding this field accountable. Now it’s time to hold the next administration accountable too.
We’ll be watching. And we’ll be voting for Tom Steyer.
About the Author
Kellie Todd Griffin is the President & CEO of the California Black Women’s Collective Empowerment Institute. With a deep commitment to equity and justice, she champions initiatives that amplify the voices and influence of Black women across California. Known for her strategic insight and passion for community empowerment, Kellie is a driving force in fostering systemic change and collective progress.