Former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms made history Tuesday night, winning Georgia’s governor’s race to become the state’s first woman and first Black person elected governor, NBC News and Decision Desk HQ projected. She will also be the nation’s first Black woman governor.
Bottoms defeated Republican Rick Jackson, a billionaire who founded Jackson Healthcare and spent more than $200 million on his campaign. Her win flips the office for Democrats, and Georgia voters hadn’t elected a Democratic governor since 1998.
Jackson repeatedly told voters that as governor, he would “be like Trump, but with a southern tongue,” TheGrio reported, and Bottoms spent much of the campaign tying him to the president.
The race shared the ballot with one of the country’s most closely watched Senate contests, in which Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff defeated Republican Rep. Mike Collins. Georgia was a prime battleground in a midterm cycle in which Democrats were energized and President Donald Trump’s approval had fallen.
Bottoms’ win delivers Democrats a major victory in a state both parties had spent heavily to compete for.