Former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, a graduate of Florida A&M, was elected governor of Georgia on Tuesday, defeating Republican businessman Rick Jackson.
With most of the vote counted late Tuesday, several news outlets showed Bottoms leading 54.4% to 45.6%, and unofficial tallies had her at over 2.1 million votes. Jackson conceded Tuesday night.
Bottoms will be Georgia’s first woman governor, its first Black governor, and the first Black woman elected governor of any U.S. state. She is just the fourth Black governor elected in U.S. history. She is also the first Democrat to win the office since 1998, ending Republican control that began in 2002.
“What we do in this moment will echo through history,” Bottoms said ahead of Election Day.
Bottoms, 56, earned her degree in broadcast journalism from FAMU’s School of Journalism & Graphic Communication and her law degree from Georgia State. She served as a prosecutor, a magistrate judge, Atlanta’s 60th mayor, and a senior adviser in the Biden White House.
She won despite a major spending gap. Jackson put more than $200 million of his own fortune into the race. Pro-Jackson groups also spent or reserved nearly $76 million on general-election ads, compared with about $8 million for Bottoms and her allies.
She campaigned on health care, lowering costs for families, voting rights, and economic opportunity. The 2026 race was the third straight Georgia governor’s race with a Black woman leading the Democratic ticket.
Bottoms will succeed term-limited Gov. Brian Kemp in January.
