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Keisha Lance Bottoms will be the first Black female governor elected in the country, after she won the Georgia governor's race, according to a race call by the Associated Press.
Bottoms' win marks the first time Georgia has elected a Democratic governor in more than 20 years, breaking the Republican hold on state government in Georgia. But she will likely be working with a Republican majority in at least one chamber of the legislature.
Bottoms, 56, defeated Republican Rick Jackson, a billionaire healthcare executive endorsed by President Trump. Trump won Georgia in 2024, but lost the state in 2020. Since then, Georgia has evolved from a state that consistently elects Republicans to federal and state office to a swing state with Democratic senators. But the governor's office and the legislature have remained solidly Republican.
Throughout her campaign, Bottoms made fully expanding Medicaid in the state, which would require legislative approval, a top campaign promise.
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Before running for governor, Bottoms served as mayor of Atlanta for a single tumultuous term from 2018-2022, during which the city grappled with the COVID-19 pandemic and the social unrest seen in other major cities at that time. She declined to run for a second term and instead served as an adviser in the Biden administration. Her opponent used her record as mayor against her in attack ads, claiming she abandoned the city after allowing crime to fester — because Atlanta, like many other major cities, saw an increase in crime during the pandemic.
Bottoms harnessed frustration against Trump to propel her campaign. She promised to stand up to the Trump administration while in office, and to find relief for high prices. One of her proposals includes allowing local municipalities to eliminate the sales tax on groceries. She has also said she wants to eliminate the state income tax for public school teachers.
Data centers also emerged as a top campaign issue, as the state leads the nation in new data center construction. Bottoms said she backs a moratorium on new data centers.
"We need experts in this field to sit around the table and tell us and give us guidance as to how the state of Georgia should move forward," Bottoms said in October, during her only gubernatorial debate with Jackson.
Bottoms touted Trump's endorsement of Jackson throughout the campaign. Jackson aligned himself with Trump during the primaries, but later distanced himself from the president by removing references to him on his website and leaving Trump's name out of speeches on the campaign trail. Instead, he allied himself with Georgia's current governor, Brian Kemp, who endorsed Jackson after the primary.
Bottoms gained her own endorsements from several high-profile Democrats, including former presidents Joe Biden and Barack Obama. She also regularly campaigned with Sen. Jon Ossoff, one of Georgia's two Democratic U.S. senators.
Sarah Kallis is the politics reporter at Georgia Public Broadcasting.
Copyright 2026 GPB - Georgia Public Broadcasting
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