Keisha Lance Bottoms (D) made history Tuesday. The former Atlanta mayor was elected governor of Georgia, becoming the first Black woman ever elected governor of a U.S. state, The Associated Press reported. She will also be Georgia’s first woman governor, WSB-TV reported.
“No matter who you voted for tonight, I will be a governor for all of Georgia,” Bottoms told supporters at her victory party. “In big and small ways, you’ve shown that no amount of money will ever, never ever, ever overcome the power of the people.”
Jackson had far more money. Republican Rick Jackson, a billionaire, reported raising $244.2 million, about 18 times the $13.4 million Bottoms reported, in state campaign finance reports through Oct. 20 and the two-day reports filed after it. She won anyway, by about 360,000 votes, according to unofficial results from the Secretary of State with all 2,581 precincts reporting: 54% to 46% (2,268,462 to 1,908,261). The results are unofficial until the state certifies them.
Her win ends 24 years of Republican control of the governor’s office. The last Democrat to hold the office was Roy Barnes, who left in January 2003. Sonny Perdue’s win in 2002 made him the first Republican elected governor since Reconstruction, WSB-TV reported.
Bottoms is a lawyer who worked as a prosecutor and an Atlanta magistrate judge before winning a seat on the Atlanta City Council, where she served from 2010 to 2018. She was Atlanta’s mayor from January 2018 to January 2022, through the pandemic and the 2020 protests after George Floyd’s murder, and clashed with Gov. Brian Kemp (R) over the city’s mask mandate. President Joe Biden then brought her to the White House as a senior adviser.
She often tells her family’s story. “I am at least a fifth-generation Georgian,” she has said, adding that her family can be traced back five generations to a plantation in Crawfordville.
Bottoms will take over from Kemp, who was barred by law from a third term. She campaigned on expanding Medicaid, raising the state minimum wage to $15 an hour and raising pay for teachers, firefighters and police officers. She will govern with Democrats holding all eight of the state’s constitutional offices, Republicans holding the state Senate 29 to 27 and control of the state House still unsettled.
It was the third Georgia race for governor in a row with a Black woman leading the Democratic ticket. Stacey Abrams lost the first two to Kemp. This time, the Black woman at the top of the ticket won.