Aisha Wahab

Aisha Wahab, 39, was the first Afghan American elected to public office in the United States when she became a member of the Hayward City Council in 2018. As a child, she was placed in the Bay Area foster care system after her father was murdered and her mother died. When she was elected to the Senate in 2022, she became the first Muslim and first Afghan to join the chamber. In her first term, she advocated for California to include caste discrimination under the state’s civil rights act. Gov. Newsom vetoed the bill, saying existing laws already prohibit such discrimination. She has a degree from Cal State San Jose.