Keisha Lance Bottoms is the Democratic nominee for Georgia governor, as the party seeks to flip the state’s top seat for the first time in nearly three decades.
Bottoms, who defeated a crowded field to win the race outright Tuesday, can pivot to the general election — even as Republicans are headed toward a costly runoff of their own.
Georgia hasn’t elected a Democrat to the governorship since 1998 but has trended hard toward purple-state status in recent years, with Democrats carrying the state in the 2020 presidential election and winning Senate races there that year and in 2022. But the governor’s mansion has remained elusive — and some Democrats have already questioned Bottoms’ ability to win in a general election, noting that her rocky tenure as Atlanta’s mayor from 2018 to 2022 makes her vulnerable to general election attacks.
Bottoms’ outright win lets her get a head start at closing her fundraising gap in the race: Both Lt. Gov. Burt Jones and health care executive Rick Jackson — the two leading candidates on the Republican side — have amassed war chests that exceed hers by millions of dollars, but much of that money has come from personal loans to their campaigns.
With the primary now behind her, she is likely to ramp up efforts to tap national donors and support from Democratic leaders who had largely stayed on the sidelines.
Bottoms, who served as a senior adviser during the Biden administration and earned the former president’s endorsement, boasted higher name recognition than her primary opponents. She easily defeated former state Sen. Jason Esteves, former DeKalb County executive Michael Thurmond and former Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan to clinch the nomination Tuesday.
Public polling before the primary showed Bottoms as the clear front-runner, but the state’s rules — which require candidates to win more than 50 percent of the vote — increased the likelihood of a runoff.
Still, even before the primary concluded, she was already the subject of attack ads from Republicans, including Jackson, foreshadowing the onslaught likely to come.