Former Ohio state Sen. Nina Turner has endorsed Green Party gubernatorial candidate Butch Ware in California’s 2026 governor’s race, praising him as “a champion” who is running on “a humanitarian platform for all people.”
She announced her support during a January 27 conversation with Ware hosted by his campaign, saying she was giving him her “full endorsement” to become California’s next governor. During the discussion, the two also addressed immigration enforcement, state violence, and systemic injustice facing Black communities.
Turner pointed to recent Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations and referenced the New Year’s Eve killing of Keith Porter, an unarmed Black man from Los Angeles who was shot and killed by an off-duty ICE agent, citing the incident as an example of what she called “anti-Blackness” in American society. She compared the wider political struggle to a “tug of war” between Black liberation and what she described as ruling-class white supremacy.
The two also discussed lessons from past political movements, with Turner pointing to Fannie Lou Hamer and the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party as models of coalition politics that challenged entrenched power structures. Ware, who is running as part of a left unity coalition with the Peace and Freedom Party, argued that similar coalition-building remains necessary today as an alternative to the two-party system.
Turner served in the Ohio Senate from 2008 to 2014 after several years on Cleveland City Council. She was the Democratic nominee for Ohio secretary of state in 2014 and later ran in the Democratic primary for Ohio’s 11th Congressional District in both the 2021 special election and the 2022 midterm cycle. She also served as co-chair of Bernie Sanders’ 2020 presidential campaign and identifies as a democratic socialist.
Turner reiterated her support for Ware again later that week on social media, writing that “in a moment of rapidly increasing wealth and power inequality, it’s important to have people like Dr. Ware fighting for working people.”
California’s gubernatorial election will take place on November 3, following a “top-two” primary set for June 2. Under the state’s Proposition 14 system, all candidates for governor will appear on a single ballot regardless of party, with the two highest vote-getters advancing to the general election.
Nina Turner?
The same Nina Turner who called for raising the minimum wage while paying campaign staffers less than the OH minimum wage?
That endorsement is a Kiss of Death since she’s a known and certified moron.