ATLANTA — Keisha Lance Bottoms has been elected governor of Georgia, defeating Republican Rick Jackson in Tuesday’s general election and becoming the first Black woman ever elected governor of an American state, according to the Associated Press, which called the race on election night.
The victory carries a triple first for Georgia. Bottoms will be the state’s first Black governor, its first woman governor, and its first Democratic governor since Roy Barnes left office in 2003 — ending 24 years of Republican control of the governor’s office. She succeeds term-limited Governor Brian Kemp and takes office in January.
The Associated Press called the race at approximately 9:24 p.m. Eastern on Tuesday, November 3, with Bottoms holding a commanding lead of roughly ten points as returns came in. She carried the ticket on a night that swept Georgia Democrats to major wins, including the re-election of U.S. Senator Jon Ossoff, and that delivered control of both the U.S. House and the U.S. Senate to the Democratic Party.
From Atlanta City Hall to the Governor’s Office
Bottoms, an Atlanta native and attorney, is no stranger to executive office. She served as the 60th mayor of Atlanta from 2018 to 2022, leading the city through the COVID-19 pandemic and a period of national reckoning on policing and public safety. She is the only mayor in Atlanta’s history to have served in all three branches of city government, having previously worked as a judge and as a member of the Atlanta City Council.
After leaving City Hall, she moved to the White House, serving as a senior advisor to President Joe Biden and director of the White House Office of Public Engagement from 2022 to 2023, where she was one of the administration’s principal liaisons to state and local leaders, business organizations, and community groups across the country.
She won the Democratic nomination in May with more than 57 percent of the primary vote, then faced Jackson, a billionaire healthcare executive, in one of the most closely watched governor’s races in the nation. Pre-election polling had shown a tight contest; the result on Tuesday was not close.
A Barrier More Than Two Centuries in the Making
Since the founding of the republic, roughly 2,300 people have served as governor of an American state. Only a handful have been Black, and no Black woman had ever won the office — until Tuesday night. Bottoms’s election closes one of the longest-standing gaps in American political leadership.
Georgia is a fitting state for the breakthrough. It is home to Atlanta, widely regarded as a capital of Black business in America, with one of the largest concentrations of Black-owned firms, Black corporate leadership, and Black wealth-building institutions in the nation. The state that produced Maynard Jackson, the first Black mayor of a major Southern city, has now produced the first Black woman governor in American history.
What Georgia’s Business Community Will Be Watching
For Black business owners in Georgia, the transition in the governor’s office raises immediate practical questions. State government is one of the largest buyers of goods and services in Georgia, and the governor sets the tone — and the targets — for who gets access to that spending. Procurement policy, supplier diversity in state contracting, small-business lending programs, and appointments to the boards that oversee economic development will all be early signals of the new administration’s priorities.
Bottoms built her mayoral administration in a city where Black entrepreneurs are central to the economy, and her time in the White House put her in direct contact with business organizations in every state. Georgia’s Black business community — from Atlanta’s established firms to the growing corridors in Savannah, Augusta, Columbus, and Macon — will be watching her first appointments and her first budget for evidence that the state’s economic agenda includes the businesses that have too often been last in line for state opportunity.
She will also govern with a national tailwind and a national spotlight. Democrats’ capture of both chambers of Congress means Georgia’s new governor takes office at the same moment her party returns to power in Washington — a combination that could move federal infrastructure, broadband, and small-business dollars toward states whose leadership is positioned to receive them.
The Road Ahead
Bottoms inherits a state with a strong economy, a growing population, and persistent gaps in wealth, health outcomes, and business ownership between its communities. Her campaign now gives way to a transition, with an inauguration set for January and a first legislative session that will test how quickly an historic candidacy becomes a governing record.
On Tuesday night, though, the moment belonged to history. A daughter of Atlanta — a judge, a councilmember, a mayor, and a White House advisor — became the first Black woman elected governor in the history of the United States.
Results: Associated Press (AP). Read Black Business Review’s full election coverage at blackbusinessreview.net.
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