Four Nigerian-Americans have won elective positions in the United States following Tuesday’s midterm elections, securing seats in local government and state legislatures across Maryland, Texas, Washington DC and Pennsylvania.

The winners are Will Jawando, Junior Ezeonu, Oye Owolewa and Carol Kazeem, while Nigerian-born Democratic incumbent Segun Adeyina was awaiting the outcome of his re-election bid in Georgia.

Jawando won the Montgomery County executive election in Maryland, defeating Republican candidate Esther Wells. Results published by NBC Washington showed him securing 237,383 votes, representing 78.15 per cent, against Wells’s 66,383 votes, or 21.85 per cent, with 72 per cent of expected votes counted.

Jawando, a former member of the Montgomery County Council, is the son of a Nigerian father and an American mother.

In Texas, 27-year-old Ezeonu secured a seat in the state House of Representatives for District 101. He was the Democratic candidate and faced no Republican opponent in the general election after defeating incumbent Chris Turner in the party’s primary.

Born in Onitsha, Anambra State, Ezeonu moved to Texas at the age of two. He was elected to the Grand Prairie City Council in 2021 and later became the city’s youngest mayor pro tempore.

Owolewa won an at-large seat on the District of Columbia Council as the Democratic candidate. He reportedly secured 69 per cent of the votes, defeating independent candidate Elissa Silverman, who received 21 per cent.

A pharmacist and son of Nigerian immigrants from Kwara and Osun states, Owolewa previously served as the District’s elected shadow representative, a position that advocates for statehood but does not carry voting rights in the US Congress.

Kazeem retained her seat in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, representing District 159, after defeating Republican candidate Michael Bannon. She was also among eight Nigerian-Americans elected to legislative positions during the 2022 US midterm elections.

Meanwhile, Adeyina was seeking another term in the Georgia House of Representatives for District 110, where he faced Republican candidate Charles Lollar.

An early election update by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution showed Adeyina leading with 1,353 votes against Lollar’s 689, although only eight per cent of the estimated votes had been counted at the time.

Adeyina, who was first elected in 2022, represents parts of Gwinnett County. He also serves as executive director of the Nigerian American Public Advisory Committee, an organisation involved in voter education and registration among immigrant communities.

The US midterm elections are held halfway through a president’s four-year term and determine the composition of Congress, with all 435 House of Representatives seats and 35 of the Senate’s 100 seats contested in the 2026 elections.

Governorships, state legislative positions and local government offices are also decided during the elections, which are widely regarded as a measure of public sentiment towards the sitting administration.