Keisha Lance Bottoms Wins Georgia Governor Race

The Associated Press called the race for Bottoms at about 9:24 p.m. Eastern time on Tuesday evening. Reporting on the Associated Press results put her share of the vote at about 54 percent, with Jackson at about 46 percent, in results that remained unofficial until certified. She becomes the first Democrat to win a Georgia governor race since 1998, and she will succeed Governor Brian Kemp, who could not seek another term because of term limits.

Bottoms served as the 60th mayor of Atlanta from 2018 to 2022. She later served as a senior adviser to former President Joe Biden and as director of the White House Office of Public Engagement. Her campaign drew on that record in Atlanta and in Washington, and her win comes eight years after Stacey Abrams became the first Black woman nominated for governor by a major party in the United States.

The result also made history beyond Georgia. On the same night, Stacey Plaskett won the governor race in the United States Virgin Islands, becoming the first woman elected to lead the territory and the first Black woman elected governor of a United States jurisdiction. The two wins together marked a historic night for Black women in American politics.

Bottoms, 56, is an attorney and a former Atlanta city council member and judge. Reporting on the race noted the wide spending gap in the campaign, with Jackson putting more than 200 million dollars of his own money into his campaign, according to reporting on the race. Her victory was reported as a win built on turnout in Georgia's largest cities and among Black voters, a core part of the Democratic coalition in the state.

Georgia voters made their choice in a closely watched race in one of the nation's most closely divided political battlegrounds. The Talk Lounge will follow Bottoms as she prepares to take office and as her transition team shares its plans for Georgia.

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