ATLANTA — Democrat Keisha Lance Bottoms won Georgia’s race for governor on Tuesday, becoming the first Black woman elected governor of a U.S. state and delivering Democrats a victory in one of the nation’s most closely divided battlegrounds, according to the Associated Press.
Bottoms, 56, a former mayor of Atlanta, defeated Republican businessman Rick Jackson. She will also be Georgia’s first female governor. She succeeds Republican Governor Brian Kemp, who was barred by law from seeking a third term. Bottoms previously served as a senior adviser to former President Joe Biden and as director of the White House Office of Public Engagement.
A barrier that stood for generations
Bottoms was one of eight Black major-party nominees for governor on the ballot on Tuesday. Before this election, only three Black governors had ever been elected in U.S. history, all of them Democratic men, according to the AP. Her victory comes eight years after fellow Georgia Democrat Stacey Abrams became the first Black woman nominated for governor by a major party. Bottoms is also the first Democrat to win Georgia’s governorship since Roy Barnes won in 1998, ending more than two decades of Republican control of the office.
She won despite a large spending gap. Jackson, a health-care executive endorsed by President Donald Trump and by Kemp, put more than $200 million of his own money into the race, according to Georgia reporting.
More firsts on the same night
Georgia was not the only place where history was made. In Florida, Republican Representative Byron Donalds was elected governor, becoming the first Black Republican elected governor in the United States, according to the AP. The same evening, Stacey Plaskett was elected governor of the U.S. Virgin Islands, a U.S. territory. And in Washington, House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries is in line to become the first Black speaker of the U.S. House after Democrats won control of the chamber.
In Wisconsin, Democrat David Crowley was reported by AP-based results trackers to have won the governorship, which would make him the state’s first Black governor.
What happens next
Bottoms takes office in January, inheriting a closely divided state where Republicans remain strong in the legislature. Her campaign centred on the cost of living, health care and public schools. In Georgia she will govern alongside two Democratic senators, Jon Ossoff, who won re-election on Tuesday, and Raphael Warnock.
Read the AP report via WNCY: Keisha Lance Bottoms wins Georgia race, becomes first Black woman elected governor of US state.
