Aisha Wahab (born January 11, 1987) is an American politician who has served since 2026 as the U.S. representative from California's 14th congressional district. A member of the Democratic Party, Wahab served from 2022 to 2026 as a member of the California State Senate from the 10th district and from 2018 to 2022 on the Hayward City Council. She is among the first Afghan Americans elected to public office in the United States, the first Muslim and Afghan American elected to the California State Senate, and the first Afghan American elected to Congress.
Born to Afghan refugees in New York City, Wahab was raised in Fremont, California, and has a doctorate in social work from the University of Southern California. She worked in nonprofit organizations and consulting before entering politics. She was elected to the Hayward City Council in 2018 and to the California State Senate in 2022.
In 2025, Wahab was appointed Senate assistant majority leader. She announced her candidacy for Congress in California's 14th congressional district in 2026. Wahab also ran in a special election from the same district to complete the term of Eric Swalwell, who resigned in April after facing allegations of sexual misconduct. Wahab won a plurality in the first round, and defeated Democrat Melissa Hernandez in the runoff on August 18. Wahab and Hernandez will face off again in the general election for a full two-year term.
Early life and education Wahab was born in Queens, New York City, to a family from Afghanistan that came to the United States in the 1980s as refugees fleeing the Soviet–Afghan War. Soon after her birth, her father was murdered, and his murder was never solved. Her mother died shortly thereafter, leaving Wahab and her sister in foster care. The sisters were then adopted by a Fremont, California couple sharing the same ethnic background as their biological parents.
Wahab graduated from John F. Kennedy High School and Ohlone College, both in Fremont, before earning a Bachelor of Arts in political science from San Jose State University in 2010. During and after college, she was an account manager and business development director for various startup companies in the San Francisco Bay Area. In 2011, the economic impacts of the Great Recession caused Wahab to lose her job and her parents to lose their business. When Wahab's parents' home was foreclosed on, the family was priced out of Fremont and moved to Hayward, California, where they became renters.
Wahab earned a Master of Business Administration from California State University, East Bay, in 2013. She was involved in student government during graduate school and became an IT consultant after graduation.
In 2024, Wahab completed a doctorate in social work at the USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work.
Early political career
Hayward City Council
Wahab ran for Hayward City Council in 2018. She was the top vote-getter in a field of seven candidates vying for an at-large city council seat, beating two incumbents. Along with New Hampshire state representative Safiya Wazir, Wahab was the first Afghan American elected to public office in the United States.
In 2019, California state assemblymember Bill Quirk recognized Wahab as Woman of the Year from Assembly District 20.
Wahab served on the Hayward City Council from 2018 to 2022. She did not run for reelection in 2022, instead successfully running for California State Senate.
California State Senate
2022 election
Wahab announced she would run for the California State Senate in the 10th district, which spans from Hayward to Sunnyvale. Incumbent state senator Bob Wieckowski was term-limited and endorsed Wahab to succeed him. During the campaign, she said she would focus on California's housing crisis and stagnating wages. California state assemblymember Alex Lee, whose district overlaps with Wahab's, and former Federal Election Commission chair Ann Ravel backed her campaign. She advanced to the top-two primary on June 7 and won the general election on November 8, defeating Fremont mayor Lily Mei, a moderate Democrat, in the general election. Her victory made Wahab the first Muslim and Afghan American elected to the California State Senate.
Tenure
Wahab was sworn in as a state senator on December 5, 2022. While in office, Wahab maintained a broad legislative portfolio spanning housing, public safety, health and human services, infrastructure, workforce development, and labor protections. During the 2023–2025 legislative sessions, she authored, principal-coauthored, or coauthored legislation across these policy areas, with dozens of measures enacted into law and others advancing through committee and appropriations processes.
Her housing-related state legislative work includes more than 20 bills addressing tenant protections, rental practices, and housing affordability, alongside committee-level leadership on broader housing policy and infrastructure considerations. She also authored and supported numerous measures focused on foster youth, post-adoption protections, and service delivery standards.
Wahab's health-related legislation included measures expanding access to essential services and addressing equity in public health settings, while her public safety work has addressed firearm safety, traffic enforcement practices, and criminal justice procedures. Additional legislative activity has focused on workforce development, economic security, infrastructure planning, and labor and workplace protections.
Enacted legislation authored by Wahab includes measures addressing tenant security deposits, menstrual equity in schools and public facilities, expanded educational support for foster and homeless youth, post-adoption contact protections, and reforms affecting criminal records and survivor access to justice.
Wahab resigned from the State Senate at the end of the 2026 legislative session to take office in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Housing In 2023, Wahab authored SB 466, a bill to modify the Costa–Hawkins Rental Housing Act and allow cities to expand rent control. The bill failed to advance. In 2025, she introduced SB 436, which would bar landlords from evicting a tenant for failure to pay rent if the tenant pays back the rent. Wahab has said that parking mandates are necessary for new housing, and has often criticized efforts in California to exempt new housing projects from them.
In 2025, Wahab was named chair of the Senate Housing Committee by Mike McGuire. As chair, she has criticized efforts to increase housing supply in California amid a housing shortage and said in her first hearing as chair that California needs to move away from "development, development, development", expressing skepticism that increased housing supply would lead to lower housing prices. Wahab is a renter and has long criticized new construction without protection for low-income tenants. She has called YIMBY proposals to reduce California's zoning regulations "giveaways to developers".
Wahab initially criticized SB 79, a pro-development bill led by Scott Wiener that would allow apartment buildings near mass transit stations without local control and would override traditional zoning regulations. She said she would support increases in housing supply if developers subsidize more affordable housing and if the housing comes with a minimum number of parking spaces. According to CalMatters, Wahab's opposition to SB 79 "nearly killed" the legislation due to her role as chair of the housing committee. She initially voted against it but voted for it and spoke in favor of it after amendments. It was signed into law by Newsom.
In testimony before the 2026 Senate Housing Committee, Wahab highlighted the importance of preserving existing affordable housing, including mobile home parks, as part of efforts to address California's housing shortage, noting that several of the state's largest mobile home communities are in her district.
Caste discrimination In March 2023, Wahab introduced SB 403, a bill with a broad objective to prohibit caste discrimination. SB 403, which involved adding caste into the definition of ancestry under multiple discrimination laws, passed the California State Senate in May 2023. The bill was considered controversial by some in the South Asian community and Wahab was subject to four recall attempts, none of which had enough signatures to appear on the ballot. The bill's proponents argued that an explicit ban on caste discrimination was needed to increase awareness of such bias, but its opponents, including several Indian American organizations, said the proposal unfairly targeted Hindu residents because the caste system was most commonly associated with them. In October 2023, SB 403 was vetoed by Governor Gavin Newsom, who argued that "caste discrimination is already prohibited under existing civil rights protections".
Child welfare oversight In April 2024, Wahab, a former foster youth in Alameda County, requested that the Joint Legislative Audit Committee approve a state audit of the Alameda County Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS), writing that she sought the review "due to years of issues within the Department of Children and Family Services within Alameda County's Social Services Agency, especially concerning foster youth" and citing "clear systemic failures and a lack of administrative planning to support foster youth with emerging and complex needs". The request cited earlier controversies, including the 2022 death of eight-year-old Sophia Mason of Hayward, after social workers reportedly missed repeated warnings of abuse.
The committee approved the audit, and in September 2025 California State Auditor Grant Parks released Report 2024-108, which found that the department did not consistently initiate or complete investigations of child abuse and neglect referrals within required time frames, did not always ensure foster youth received timely physical and mental health services, and did not always ensure that youth maintained connections with family members.
At an October 27, 2025, news conference at Hayward City Hall, Wahab joined current and former local officials to demand what she called immediate and measurable reform, calling the department's record "decades of failure" and saying, "This is not mismanagement, it's criminal neglect."
Contending that the county had not acted with sufficient urgency, in December 2025 Wahab's office established the Alameda County DCFS Audit Implementation Taskforce to monitor implementation of the audit's recommendations. Chaired by Wahab, the taskforce brought together state legislators, representatives of the Alameda County Board of Supervisors, subject-matter experts, and community stakeholders, and first met on January 30, 2026. At a February 2026 meeting, a representative of the State Auditor's office told members that the county's claimed corrective actions were self-reported and not documented, and Wahab pressed the county to provide verifiable evidence.
Wahab subsequently urged the California Department of Social Services (CDSS)—the state agency responsible under Welfare and Institutions Code section 10600 for supervising county child welfare systems—to exercise its oversight authority and conduct an on-site review. CDSS conducted the review on March 26, and on July 16, it notified the county that its findings warranted state intervention and monitoring under Welfare and Institutions Code section 10605(e), directing DCFS to develop a corrective action plan to be implemented no later than October 1.