Keisha Lance Bottoms, the former mayor of Atlanta, has won the race for governor of Georgia, becoming the first Black woman ever elected governor of a US state. The Democrat defeated Republican businessman Rick Jackson in Tuesday’s midterm elections, according to the Associated Press, CBS News and WSB-TV.
She will also be Georgia’s first female governor and the first Democrat to win the state’s governorship since 1998, the AP reported.
A bigger win than expected
CBS News projected Bottoms the winner by about 9:30pm Eastern time, two and a half hours after polls closed. With 99% of the vote counted on Wednesday morning, she led Jackson by about 360,000 votes, CBS reported.
Bottoms admitted the margin surprised her. “I thought it could be much closer,” she told CBS News. She said she found out the race had been called when her husband nudged her on election night.
Jackson, who spent more than $200 million of his own fortune on the race according to the AP, accepted the result. “Tonight, the voters spoke … and I respect their decision,” he said. A political outsider, he had beaten Georgia’s lieutenant governor, attorney general and secretary of state in the Republican primary.
Who is Keisha Lance Bottoms?
Bottoms served as Atlanta’s 60th mayor from January 2018 to January 2022, after eight years on the Atlanta City Council, according to WSB-TV. Before entering politics she worked as a prosecutor and a magistrate judge. She studied at Florida A&M University and Georgia State University’s law school.
After leaving City Hall, she joined President Joe Biden’s White House in 2022 as a senior adviser and director of the Office of Public Engagement, serving into 2023. During the campaign she described herself as “at least a fifth-generation Georgian.”
What she promised
Bottoms campaigned mainly on the cost of living. According to the AP, WSB-TV and CBS News, her plans include:
- Letting local governments remove the tax on groceries.
- Expanding Medicaid and raising pay for teachers, police and firefighters.
- Fully funding education and expanding Georgia’s pre-K programme to three-year-olds.
- Pausing new data centre developments.
- Repealing Georgia’s ban on abortion after about six weeks of pregnancy.
- Cutting the state gas tax and limiting car insurance rate increases.
“My priority will be to address these cost-of-living issues,” she told CBS News.
Why it is historic
Only three Black people had previously been elected governor in US history, all of them Democratic men, the AP noted. No Black woman had ever been elected governor anywhere in the country. Stacey Abrams came close in Georgia, losing to Governor Brian Kemp in 2018 and 2022. Bottoms’ win makes her the third Black woman in a row to lead a major party’s ticket for governor in the state.
Her victory came on a historic night for Black politicians in the US. In Florida, Republican Byron Donalds became the first Black Republican elected governor, while Hakeem Jeffries is on course to become the first Black Speaker of the House.
The effects
Bottoms will succeed Kemp, a Republican who was barred by law from seeking a third term. Republicans have controlled Georgia’s governorship and both houses of the legislature for more than two decades, the AP reported, and are expected to keep at least one chamber, meaning Bottoms will likely have to work with a Republican-led legislature on taxes, health care and abortion.
Georgia is also a key swing state in presidential elections, so a Democratic governor strengthens her party’s position ahead of 2028. Atlanta is home to one of the largest Nigerian and African communities in the United States, and her plans on living costs, health care and education will be closely watched by immigrant families across the state.
What happens next
Bottoms is due to be sworn in as governor in January 2027. The state has not yet announced the date of her inauguration.
Sources: Associated Press (via Amsterdam News), CBS News, WSB-TV, Wikipedia.
