It’s the longest walk in Georgia’s political history, 600 steps from the mayor’s office in Atlanta’s towering City Hall to the governor’s office in the golden-domed state capitol building.
No Atlanta mayor has ever been to the state’s highest office, but Democrat Keisha Lance Bottoms is undaunted.
“I’m going to be the first because I’m working to get the votes of people across the state,” she said after attending a campaign event in Columbus last week. “So just because it hasn’t happened doesn’t mean it can’t happen.”
The former mayor must first defeat six others in the Democratic primary in May. If she brushes through that thicket, Republicans will be waiting to attack Bottoms over how she handled crime, disorder and the coronavirus pandemic as mayor before shaking up Atlanta’s political scene by not seeking re-election.
“She’s the easiest candidate to run for,” said Republican strategist Brian Robinson, calling Bottoms “unelectable.”
Georgia Democrats are elated by the landslide victory of two unknowns over Republican incumbents in the Nov. 4 statewide Public Service Commission elections, but if the party is to win Georgia’s first gubernatorial race since 1998, it will need a candidate who can draw support from independents and even some Republicans.
Democrats had hoped that Joe Biden winning the state’s electors in the 2020 presidential election would be a lasting breakthrough. However, Republican Gov. Brian Kemp comfortably defeated Democrat Stacey Abrams in a 2022 rematch, even though Abrams outperformed Kemp. And in 2024, Donald Trump defeated Democrat Kamala Harris in Georgia, significantly boosting Republican turnout.
early advantage
For some Bottoms supporters, the primary is an erasure in an area that highlights many of the fissures facing the Democratic Party nationally: suburbs versus cities, progressives versus centrists, newcomers versus veteran warhorses.
Former state Sen. Jason Estevez has support from some party insiders but is unknown statewide. Former state labor commissioner and DeKalb County CEO Michael Thurmond, 72, has a wealth of experience but has historically been bad at fundraising. Former Republican Lt. Gov. Jeff Duncan’s party switch has sparked curiosity, but an apology for past Republican positions may not be enough for the lifelong Democrat. State Rep. Ruwa Longman promises Zoran Mamdani-style progressivism, but could face an uphill battle among moderate Democrats. Additionally, state Rep. Derrick Jackson, despite his military background, finished in sixth place in the 2022 Democratic primary for lieutenant governor.
Bottoms start with their benefits. She is the best known of the Democratic candidates. She has executive experience. She was considered by Biden as a possible vice presidential candidate, who later gave her national fundraising connections. Additionally, Bottoms is the only black woman Democratic in a state where black women are the backbone of the party. In 2022, the Georgia Democratic Party has nominated five Black women to 10 election offices across the state.
Sheena Browning, who attended the Columbus event, said she liked that Bottoms promised raises for Browning and his fellow state employees. Browning, like 70% of the approximately 125 attendees, is a black woman. She cited Bottoms’ “former mayor status and the fact that she is a Black woman” as the main reasons for voting for Bottoms.
But other Democrats expect Mr. Bottoms’ early support to be weak. The relationship with Biden could turn off many voters. And no black woman has ever been elected governor of any state.
reminding voters who she is
For his part, Bottoms wants to reintroduce himself. Her father was a soul coroner in the 1960s who went to prison for cocaine trafficking, and her mother enrolled in night beauty school to support the family. She has also improved her track record as mayor. During questions from reporters in Columbus, she touted a list of accomplishments, including increasing the city’s reserve fund to $180 million, avoiding property tax increases, giving raises to police and firefighters and building or preserving 7,000 units of affordable housing.
“That seems pretty successful to me,” Bottoms said.
Bottoms also said he would promote the message of affordability and do more to build affordable housing, including waiving state income taxes for teachers and “crackdown” on companies that rent out tens of thousands of single-family homes in Georgia.
“I think we can really put a stop to this affordability problem that we have,” Bottoms said.
long shadow of 2020
But her mayoral career has also been fraught with problems, especially during the difficult summer of 2020. The high point of Bottoms’ political career may have come on May 30, 2020, when she spoke emotionally against the violence and disorder at Black Lives Matter protests, condemning those who vandalized buildings, robbed stores and torched police cars.
“We are better than this! We are better than this as a city and we are better than this as a country!” Bottoms said in a speech that raised his profile as Biden’s running mate. “Go home! Go home!”
But the low point came a few weeks later, on July 4, when an 8-year-old girl in an SUV was shot and killed by gunmen occupying a makeshift barricade near a Wendy’s that had been set on fire by protesters after police shot and killed a black man in a parking lot. Officers with the “blue flu” were called in sick after prosecutors filed criminal charges against two officers in the shooting death of Rayshard Brooks. Bottoms said he gave councilors time to negotiate with the protesters to leave without police intervention.
“Time and time again, she sided with the mob against the Atlanta police,” Robinson says.
Reelection that didn’t happen
In May 2021, Bottoms became the first Atlanta mayor since World War II not to seek a second term. She then served as Biden’s senior adviser for public engagement for a year before joining his re-election campaign.
Estevez has attacked Bottoms as a “former mayor who abandoned the city during a crisis and decided not to run for re-election,” and that Bottoms is one of several candidates with “baggage that Republicans could focus on.”
Bottoms denied he was quitting, saying his political stance remained strong and he would have won re-election. “I read all the tapes,” Bottoms said in May. “We have completed our term.”
In May, Atlanta City Council President Doug Shipman and Atlanta City Council members Eshe Collins, Amir Faroqui and Jason Dozier endorsed Estevez. Shipman, who was elected citywide as council president in 2021, said voters that year told him they were dissatisfied with efforts to divide the city by allowing crime, trash collection and secession of Buckhead neighborhoods.
“I think that frustration is something that people have to rethink,” Shipman said of the 2026 gubernatorial primary, saying Democrats need a “fresh start” and “new energy.”
But Bottoms says her experience and record should inform the day.
“I’m a veteran leader and I’ve been telling people all over the state that I know what it’s like to go to war,” she said. “I know what it’s like to stand up to Donald Trump. I know what it’s like to not stand back against Donald Trump.”
Amy writes for The Associated Press.
