--- title: 7 Leadership Lessons From the Women Who Won America's 2026 Midterms description: How Keisha Lance Bottoms, Deb Haaland, Amy Acton and Annie Andrews won in 2026, and seven leadership lessons you can use at work and in business. author: Dr Marina Nani (Editor-in-Chief) date: 2026-11-05T10:30:00.033Z updated: 2026-11-05T10:30:00.048Z canonical: https://richwoman.co/article/women-leadership-lessons-midterms-2026 image: https://cdn.nanimediahouse.com/pexels-8424530.webp categories: Female leadership content_type: Guide region: United States publication: Rich Woman Magazine schema_type: Article --- America's 2026 midterms produced a [record number of women governors](https://richwoman.co/article/women-governors-2027-record) and a string of firsts, from the first Black woman elected to lead a state to the first Native American woman in the Senate. Our [election night report](https://richwoman.co/article/midterms-2026-democrats-win-what-it-means-for-women) covers the results. The campaigns behind them carry lessons for you whether you run a company, a team or your own business, and none of them requires you to stand for office. ## Treat a Lost Race as the Start of the Next One Deb Haaland, now the first Native American woman elected governor in the United States, lost her first statewide race. She ran for lieutenant governor of New Mexico in 2014 and was beaten. The next year she became the first Native American to chair a major political party in the state. Three years later she was in Congress, and in 2021 she joined the cabinet. Dr Annie Andrews followed the same path. She ran for Congress in South Carolina in 2022, her first campaign for any office, and lost to Nancy Mace. On Tuesday she became the first woman elected to the Senate from South Carolina. When you lose a pitch, a promotion or a contract, write down who backed you, which message landed and which did not. Your first attempt gives you a list of supporters and a record of what works. Keep both for the second attempt. ## Climb Steadily Before You Reach for the Top Job Debbie Walsh, director of the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University, described this year's women governors as women who worked their way up through their states' political systems. The record shows it. Keisha Lance Bottoms served a term as mayor of Atlanta from 2018 to 2022 and then worked in the White House as director of the Office of Public Engagement before she ran for governor of Georgia. Amy Klobuchar spent almost two decades in the US Senate before she won the governorship of Minnesota. Each step gave these women something the next job needed: a record voters could judge, a network of people who owed them a favour and experience of a crisis. Before you apply for the top role, look at the job one level below it. If you can do that one well and visibly, you arrive at the top with proof rather than promises. ## Lead With the Expertise People Already Trust Andrews spent 14 years as a doctor at the children's hospital of the Medical University of South Carolina, and she put that work at the centre of her campaign. Her message, she told local reporters, gave Republican voters permission to choose 'a pediatrician instead of just another politician'. In a state that had not sent a Democrat to the Senate since the 1990s, enough of them did. Dr Amy Acton, Ohio's first elected woman governor, built her career as a physician and a teacher at Ohio State University. Most Ohioans first met her as the calm voice beside Governor Mike DeWine at the start of the pandemic, when she ran the state's health department. Your professional record is your most credible introduction. Open with what you have done for people, the patients treated, the clients served, the problem fixed, before you talk about your title. ## Win Your Own Side First, and Win It Clearly In May, Bottoms faced six rivals in the Democratic primary for governor of Georgia, and her opponents hoped to force her into a runoff. She took more than 56 per cent of the vote and avoided it. Haaland won her party's nomination in New Mexico with 72 per cent. Both women went into the autumn with their own side united behind them and a summer free to talk to everyone else. Inside an organisation the same rule holds. Before you take a proposal to the board or the wider company, secure your own team, your direct manager and the colleagues closest to the work. A plan that arrives with its home side united is far harder to knock down. ## Talk About the Problem People Feel at Home Acton ran in a state that had not elected a Democrat as governor since 2006. She did not lead with party. She led with household costs. Families, she said at the start of her campaign, are working harder than ever, yet 'there is no more breathing room'. Bottoms campaigned on universal pre-school, wider health cover, affordable housing and support for farmers. Haaland promised New Mexicans the state would put more money back in their pockets. When you present an idea, start with the cost, the delay or the frustration your audience lives with every week. A proposal that names their problem in their own words holds their attention far longer than a list of goals. ## Stay Steady When You Are Outspent and Attacked Acton's opponent, the biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, had the endorsement of President Trump and, in May, more than $30 million available to spend against her $5 million. He made her resignation as health director the centre of his case against her and called it the most damning thing about her. In Georgia, Bottoms faced Rick Jackson, a billionaire health care executive. Both women won. Neither matched her opponent's money. Both kept repeating one message about voters' lives. When a better funded competitor or a louder colleague comes after you, resist the urge to answer every charge. Decide on the two or three points that matter to the people you serve and keep returning to them. ## Bring Other Women Onto Your Team In New Mexico, voters elected Haaland and her running mate, Stephanie Garcia Richard, the first all women of colour ticket in the country. Women were elected together as governor and lieutenant governor on the same ticket in Massachusetts, Michigan and New York as well, and from January, eight states will have women in both jobs. When you build a team, a board or a shortlist, look at who stands beside you as well as who stands behind you. A woman in the number two role today is often the best placed candidate for the top role when it falls vacant.