Keisha Lance Bottoms Becomes Georgia's First Black Woman Elected Governor, Flipping Key Swing-State Seat

Keisha Lance Bottoms, a Democrat and former Atlanta mayor, was elected governor of Georgia on Tuesday, defeating Republican businessman Rick Jackson. She is the first Black woman to hold the office, and the first Democrat to win a Georgia governor's race since 1998.

She won against a lopsided money contest. Jackson, a billionaire, put more than $200 million of his own fortune into the race. Bottoms took office-seeking ground in a state where voters have long been reluctant to send Atlantans to the governor's mansion, and her win is the latest sign of how growth in the state's largest metro area is reshaping Georgia politics.

She will succeed Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, who was barred by law from seeking a third term. This was the third Georgia governor's race in a row with a Black woman at the top of a ticket. Kemp twice beat Stacey Abrams, who remains a prominent voting rights advocate and Democratic fundraiser but chose not to run a third time. Bottoms was one of eight Black major-party nominees for governor across the country on Tuesday's ballots. Only three Black governors have ever been elected in the United States, all Democratic men. Two Black women ran this year: Bottoms and Republican Lisa Demuth of Minnesota.

Bottoms rarely spoke directly about the historic nature of her candidacy, though she often told her family's story. She described herself as at least a fifth-generation Georgian, adding that her family can only be traced back five generations, to a plantation in Crawfordville. Her grandfather moved to Atlanta from rural Georgia and had to walk through the back doors of downtown buildings that she later entered through the front as mayor. Her ancestry, she said, is always present with her. Before Election Day she said that what is done in this moment will echo through history.

Her campaign stressed policy. She called for expanding Medicaid to cover hundreds of thousands more people, raising the state minimum wage to $15 an hour, and raising pay for teachers, firefighters, police officers and other public employees. She wants to repeal Georgia's ban on abortion after the sixth week of pregnancy, calling it a life and death issue and citing women who have died from miscarriage and pregnancy complications because physicians fear prosecution. She also proposed pausing new data center development and halting installation of additional automated Flock cameras used by law enforcement.

Much of her pitch was framed against Jackson and President Donald Trump. She pledged to protect Georgians from Trump's harmful policies, and reminded voters that Jackson had said he wanted to govern like "Trump with a Southern tone" and be the president's favorite governor. In the lone debate, she said she was not running to be his favorite governor but to work on behalf of people like those in the audience. She disputed Jackson's portrayal of himself as a self-made outsider who understood economic struggle, pointing to lucrative government contracts held by his company, Jackson Healthcare, and accused him of using money made from taxpayers to try to buy the election.

Jackson's TV advertising was heavy. Spots featured clips of the protests following the 2020 police killings of Rayshard Brooks in Atlanta and George Floyd in Minneapolis, both Black men killed by white officers. He also attacked Bottoms for not seeking a second term as mayor, saying she abandoned the city. She withstood both lines of attack.

For Republicans, the loss is a difficult turn. Jackson entered the race a relative unknown and used his wealth and outsider appeal to beat the sitting lieutenant governor, who had Trump's early endorsement, along with the attorney general and the secretary of state. Democrats have won three U.S. Senate elections since Trump's first presidential victory a decade ago, and Sen. Jon Ossoff was reelected Tuesday, joining Sen. Raphael Warnock, the state's first Black senator; Ossoff is its first Jewish senator.

Still, Republicans have held a statehouse trifecta for more than two decades. Democrats were trying to flip the state House, but Republicans were heavily favored to keep the Senate, which would leave Bottoms to govern alongside at least one GOP-led chamber.