Black women running for office have been breaking records this year, and Glynda Carr is trying to help them go beyond the candidacy stage to become officeholders at all levels of government.
Carr is president and CEO of Higher Heights for America, a national organization advocating for the collective political power of Black women, and the group’s #BlackWomenRun database is designed to support candidates for federal, state and local offices regardless of party.
“We are building a network of Black women and allies, donors and members to harness the power of Black women,” Carr said.
The database – which Carr describes as “comprehensive but not complete” – provides links to social media accounts and websites for Black women (regardless of party) seeking federal and state offices, as well as mayoral positions in the nation’s 100 largest cities. For candidates who do not have the resources to build their own campaign websites, the database can serve as a portal to other information.
“We look forward to continuing to grow it robustly in out years with more information,” said Carr, who explained that they hope to expand the database in the out years. And while Higher Heights and its partners do the bulk of the data collection, candidates are able to submit their own information, subject to verification.
Now in its second election cycle, the database only provides information for general elections, but Carr hopes to be able to expand to primaries in the future.
“We hope that it’s a resource for voters, media and people who want to support Black women,” she said.
More Black women are running for Congress and governor than ever before, according to Rutgers University’s Center for American Women and Politics.
- In House campaigns, 105 Black women are the Democratic nominees (up from the previous record of 89, set in 2020) along with 29 Republicans (up one from 2020).
- Among Senate nominees, 16 Democrats are Black women (up from nine in 2020) to go along with six Republicans (up two from 2020).
- And in the gubernatorial races, 11 Democratic nominees are Black women (up from five in 2018), along with one Republican (there were two in 2014).
Black women fill just 5 percent of Congress, 3 percent of statewide offices and 5 percent of state legislatures – slightly below their overall share of the U.S. population (seven percent).
“Black women across the country ... are uniquely connected to the power of the voting booth but severely underrepresented,” Carr said.
But at a time when Black women in office are the subject of racism and sexism, the database could be used for nefarious means.
“At the end of the day Black women in this democracy have been negatively targeted,” Carr said. “Historically women and women of color are actively discouraged from running for office.
They are targeted by well funded mis- and disinformation, and they have had to start having security because of death threats.”
All that said, Higher Heights has not received any reports of the database being used for such purposes.
“A lot of work is based on amplifying Black women’s voices,” Carr said. “We also want to be the trusteed, reliable source for information and to combat mis- and disinformation.”
A golden tray sits on the Resolute Desk as President Donald Trump speaks during an announcement on American nuclear innovation in the Oval Office at the White House on July 24, 2026, in Washington, D.C. Trump is signing multiple executive orders targeting the nuclear energy sector and easing rules for new reactors and nuclear fuel supply chains.
Trump’s hubris rivals the fallen heroes of ancient Greek mythology
In January, the New York Times asked President Donald Trump if there were any limits on his global powers.
“Yeah,” the president responded, “there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”
That was eight months ago, but fortunately Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster adaptation of “The Odyssey” has made ancient Greek literature newly relevant. Before that window closes, I’d like to talk about hubris.
Today, the term mostly means excessive pride or arrogance. That’s part of what the Greeks meant by it too, but the meaning was a bit richer and more specific. Hubris was an insolent or outrageous act that offended the gods, often because the transgressor was claiming abilities or authorities that solely belonged to supreme beings.
Nolan renamed and slightly modified the concept of xenia for the film, calling it “Zeus’ law.” In the director’s telling, mortals should follow the rules laid out by the gods, specifically the requirement to treat strangers with respect lest they be gods in disguise.
In a sense, hubris is the opposite, or at least the rejection, of xenia. The hubris of the suitors, and at times Odysseus himself, invites punishment by the gods and their mortal instruments.
Which brings me back to Donald Trump. His claim that there are no constraints on his personal power to dictate events on the global stage was one of the greatest expressions of hubris ever uttered by a political leader.
Trump’s claim was obviously false when he made it.
He vowed that he could end the Russia-Ukraine war in 24 hours. He’s proved powerless to make that happen. If he had divine powers to work his will, why would he have balked at implementing his tariffs so often that Wall Street adopted the “TACO trade” term for his deals? “TACO” stands for “Trump always chickens out.”
And why would Trump have made so many embarrassing concessions to China — from rescinding tariffs on Chinese goods to allowing them to buy crucial and incredibly valuable computer chips?
But Trump saw his success at capturing Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro as proof of his ability to launch missiles to the same effect as Zeus’ lightning bolts. Trump believed he was the most powerful man who ever lived.
This is no exaggeration. In March, when the Iran invasion seemed successful, Trump gave a document penned by“Presidential Historian David King” to New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan purporting to prove that Trump was “the most powerful person to have EVER walked this planet.” King was, in fact, a businessman and occasional caddy for legendary golfer Gary Player.
King compared Trump favorably to many of history’s most powerful, and often heinous, figures: Alexander the Great, Attila the Hun, William the Conqueror, Napoleon Bonaparte, Joseph Stalin, Genghis Khan, Mao Tse Tung, Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Lenin. Many of these men thought they were the most powerful person in the world, too. And many were defeated precisely because they believed it.
At least Napoleon and Hitler had a string of truly impressive victories before they learned the folly of hubris. The limits on Trump’s power have been exposed by far less august forces than the combined might of the allies in World War II or the fearsome Russian winter.
Iran is a comparatively middling power. But the regime’s ability to absorb punishment while imposing its will on the Strait of Hormuz has proved to be a greater constraint on Trump’s power than his morality or mind. We should note that, at least rhetorically, his morality has not proved much of a constraint. He has repeatedly promised to destroy Iranian “civilization” if the regime refuses to capitulate.
But they haven’t — and won’t anytime soon — because the regime’s tolerance for pain far outstrips Trump’s. The combined fear of skyrocketing oil prices, outrage of Gulf state potentates, diminishing weapon supplies and domestic unpopularity is doing the work that international law, congressional oversight and the collective opinion of foreign policy experts can’t or won’t do.
If I considered Trump more heroic than reason and facts could allow, I would say his Sisyphean predicament has the whiff of Greek tragedy to it. Trump is vexed by the fact that the Iranians won’t honor deals or ratify his countless premature claims of victory — giving new meaning to his vow that his presidency would make people tired of winning. It’s almost like they’re out-Trumping Trump.
Things might have gone better if he’d heeded that great Greek tragedian Sophocles: “For Zeus utterly abhors the boasts of a proud tongue.”
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Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.