Keisha Lance Bottoms Projected Winner in Georgia Governor's Race, Ending Two Decades of GOP Control

Democrat Keisha Lance Bottoms won Georgia's governor's race on Tuesday, Nov. 3, according to projections from the Associated Press, ABC News, NBC News, Decision Desk HQ and the Fox News Decision Desk. She defeated Republican healthcare executive Rick Jackson in the open-seat contest to succeed term-limited Gov. Brian Kemp.

Bottoms, 56, will be the first woman to serve as Georgia's governor. She will also be the first Black woman elected governor in U.S. history.

The numbers

The race was called roughly two hours after polls closed at 7 p.m. With about 75 percent of the vote counted, Bottoms led 55.4 percent to 44.6 percent. With 92 percent of precincts reporting, she held just over 54 percent. Final certified totals have not yet been released.

Georgia last elected a Democratic governor in 1998, when Roy Barnes won. Republicans took the office in 2002 and have held it since. The GOP has also controlled the state House and Senate for years.

Democrats made what Georgia Public Broadcasting described as significant gains in both legislative chambers. Sen. Jon Ossoff also won reelection, defeating Republican Rep. Mike Collins, according to ABC News projections.

Jackson's money and the Republican primary

Jackson, a first-time candidate, contributed more than $200 million of his own fortune. He won the GOP nomination by upsetting Lt. Gov. Burt Jones in the primary runoff. Both Trump and Kemp had endorsed Jones. After Jones lost, Trump and Kemp backed Jackson in the general election.

Jackson also skipped a debate against Bottoms, leaving an empty podium on stage.

Trump won Georgia in 2024. Joe Biden had carried it in 2020 by less than a point, becoming the first Democratic presidential nominee to win the state since Bill Clinton in 1992.

The record Jackson ran against

Bottoms served one term as Atlanta mayor, from 2018 to 2022, then declined to seek a second. She went on to serve in the Biden White House as a senior adviser and director of the Office of Public Engagement.

Jackson's attack ads said she abandoned the city after letting crime fester. Fox News commentator Gianno Caldwell made the same case in a column headlined "Bottoms ran Atlanta into the ground." Atlanta, like many large cities, did see crime rise during the pandemic, and the race was fought partly over whether that was her doing.

Voters sided with Bottoms by double digits when the race was called.

What she promised

Bottoms ran largely on cost of living. Her proposals include:

• Letting municipalities eliminate the sales tax on groceries, diapers, baby formula and feminine hygiene products.
• Ending the state tax on car insurance and homeowner's insurance premiums.
• Lowering the state gas tax.
• Eliminating the state income tax for public school teachers.
• Creating a path to free technical education and community college.
• Expanding Medicaid fully.
• Pausing construction of new data centers.

Georgia leads the nation in new data center construction, and Bottoms has said she wants experts at the table to guide the state before more are built. A moratorium would hit an industry that has become a major source of investment in the state, and she has not detailed how one would work.

She also promised to stand up to the Trump administration.

At her election night event in Atlanta, she told supporters: "You sent a message that in these times of division and acrimony you believe in something foundational, and that is hope." She also said she was standing on "shoulders made of steel."

Bottoms rarely emphasized the historic nature of her candidacy on the trail, according to the 19th News. Her campaign leaned on her background as a mother from a working-class family. Her father was incarcerated and her mother ran a hair salon.

What comes next

Medicaid expansion is the promise most dependent on others. It requires approval from the General Assembly, which Republicans have run for two decades. Democrats gained seats in both chambers, but the sources do not say whether either one changed hands.

The tax cuts she floated would also have to pass the Legislature, and a cut to the state's gas tax and insurance taxes would take revenue out of the budget. Her plan for grocery taxes leaves the decision to individual municipalities. The number of seats Democrats picked up will determine how many of those proposals reach her desk.