Texas is not one of the 17 states that have never had a female governor. That means the answer to the question Has Texas ever had a female governor is yes, even if the state’s name is absent from the list of states still waiting for their first woman in the office.
The timing matters because the question is being asked against a wider political backdrop: women currently hold the governorship in 14 of the 50 states, and two more states are all but guaranteed to elect their first women governors in the 2026 midterms. That leaves a country moving unevenly, with some states adding women to the top job and 17 still not having done so.
The clearest historical marker is Rebecca Latimer Felton, who became the first woman senator in 1922 after being appointed at age 87 to a vacant seat and serving for just one day. Her story is not about governorship, but it shows how long women have been breaking into top political offices in fits and starts rather than all at once. Women have served in the Senate for over a century, and 65 women have represented 35 states in the upper chamber, with more than three-quarters first taking office after 1980.
That uneven pace is what makes the Texas answer matter now. Four states — Colorado, Idaho, Indiana and Pennsylvania — have not had a woman senator or a woman governor, while Texas is outside that group. California has sent four women to the Senate, more than any other state, and women now hold 27 of the Senate’s 100 seats, split between 16 Democrats and 11 Republicans. Even so, the gap remains in plain sight: 17 states have never had a female governor, and the 2026 midterms are poised to push that number down without closing it.
So the direct answer is yes, Texas has had a female governor, and the more useful follow-up is how many states still have not. On that count, the number is 17, with the next real test coming in the 2026 midterms.
