ATLANTA, Ga. — Democrat Keisha Lance Bottoms was elected governor of Georgia on Tuesday, defeating Republican Rick Jackson and ending a Republican run in the governor’s office that dates to the 1998 election.
At 56, Bottoms is Georgia’s first elected woman governor and its first Black governor, and the first Black woman ever elected governor anywhere in the country. She will replace Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, who could not run again because of term limits.
She won despite being heavily outspent. Jackson, a healthcare executive making his first run for office, put more than $100 million of his own fortune into the race after entering it unexpectedly in February. He beat Lt. Gov. Burt Jones in a June primary runoff.
Her campaign centered on household costs. Bottoms has pledged to seek full Medicaid expansion, which needs approval from lawmakers, and has proposed letting cities and counties drop the sales tax on groceries and exempting public school teachers from state income tax. She has also said she supports a pause on new data centers in a state that leads the nation in building them.
The new governor may still face a divided Capitol. Republicans are expected to keep a majority in at least one chamber, though Democrats narrowed the GOP edge in the Senate and late counts showed Democratic candidates ahead in 13 Republican-held House districts, three more than the party needs for a House majority.
Bottoms led Atlanta as mayor for a single term, 2018 through 2022, a stretch shaped by the pandemic, and chose not to seek reelection before taking a post in the Biden administration. Republicans made her record as mayor a focus of their attacks during the campaign.
Democrats won every statewide office on the ballot Tuesday, and voters also returned U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff to Washington by a wide margin.
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