Heather Tom Chases a Record Seventh Daytime Emmy This October

Heather Tom needs one win on October 30 to become the most decorated female performer in Daytime Emmy history. The 2026 ceremony at the Hollywood Palladium will decide whether she converts her record-tying sixth trophy into a record-breaking seventh.

What record is on the line?

Tom won her sixth career Daytime Emmy six years ago, drawing level with Erika Slezak of One Life to Live. A seventh statuette would make Tom the undisputed female champion. Anthony Geary still holds the men's record with eight wins.

Slezak built her six wins from nine Best Actress nominations for matriarch Victoria Lord, taking the prize in 1984, 1986, 1992, 1995, 1996 and 2005. Her total might have grown, but ABC cancelled the soap in 2012; a brief online revival followed in 2013. Since Slezak left the field, Tom has carried the chase alone.

How did Tom build her case?

Tom entered daytime in 1990 as a teenager, playing corporate heiress Victoria Newman on The Young and the Restless for 13 years. That run produced nine Emmy nominations and two wins for Best Younger Actress, in 1993 and 1999.

She then moved to One Life to Live, taking over the role of Kelly Cramer for three years. Two Best Supporting Actress nominations followed, in 2005 and 2007, and she lost both. The 2005 bid still mattered: it was her tenth nomination, a record for any actress under 30.

In 2007 she assumed her current role as Katie on The Bold and the Beautiful, a part Nancy Sloan had played on and off since the show's 1987 premiere. The Academy responded with nine more nominations and four wins: Best Supporting Actress in 2011, then Best Actress in 2012, 2013 and 2020. She received no further nominations until this year.

Tom also stands alone in one respect: she is the only female actor to win Daytime Emmys in all three performer categories — Younger Actress, Supporting Actress and Lead Actress.

What do the odds say?

Gold Derby's predictions put Tom in a tie for second place, not first:

• Tamara Tunie, Beyond the Gates — 84.3%
• Michelle Stafford, The Young and the Restless — 5.9%
• Heather Tom, The Bold and the Beautiful — 5.9%
• Stacy Haiduk, Days of Our Lives — 2.0%
• Karla Mosley, Beyond the Gates — 2.0%

Tunie dominates the field at 84% for television's newest soap, which leaves Tom and Stafford sharing runner-up status at roughly 6% apiece.

What does this change in the race?

The arithmetic is blunt. Tom holds six wins, a tenth-of-a-percent share of the prediction market, and one category in which history can be made. Tunie holds the numbers everyone else is chasing.

The record breaks, or it waits, on October 30.