COLUMBUS, Ga. — It’s the longest walk in Georgia politics — the 600 steps from the mayor’s office in Atlanta’s towering City Hall to the governor’s office in the gold-domed state Capitol.
No Atlanta mayor has ever made the journey to the state’s top office, but Democrat Keisha Lance Bottoms is undeterred.
“I’m going to be the first because I am working to earn people’s votes across the state,” she said after a campaign appearance in Columbus last week. “So just because it hasn’t happened doesn’t mean that it can’t happen.”
The former mayor must initially overcome six others in a Democratic primary in May. If she pushes through that thicket, Republicans lie in wait to attack Bottoms on how she managed crime, disorder and the COVID pandemic as mayor before jolting Atlanta politicos by not seeking reelection.
“She is the easiest to run against,” said Republican strategist Brian Robinson, who calls Bottoms “unelectable.”
While Georgia Democrats are elated after two unknowns won landslide victories over Republican incumbents in statewide elections to the Public Service Commission on Nov. 4, they need a nominee who can reach independents and even some Republicans for the party to win its first Georgia governor’s race since 1998.
Democrats hoped Joe Biden winning the state’s electoral votes for president in 2020 marked a lasting breakthrough. But Republican Gov. Brian Kemp handily defeated Democrat Stacey Abrams in their 2022 rematch despite Abrams outspending Kemp. And 2024 saw Donald Trump substantially boost Republican turnout in his Georgia victory over Democrat Kamala Harris.
Early advantages
For some Bottoms supporters, the primary is a process of elimination in a field highlighting many of the fissures Democrats face nationally, including suburban-versus-urban, progressive-versus-centrist and fresh faces-versus-old warhorses.
Former state Sen. Jason Esteves is backed by some party insiders but is unknown statewide. Former state labor commissioner and DeKalb County CEO Michael Thurmond has vast experience but is 72 years old and has historically been a weak fundraiser. Former Republican lieutenant governor Geoff Duncan’s party switch has drawn curiosity, but apologies for past GOP positions may not be enough for lifelong Democrats. State Rep. Ruwa Romman promises Zohran Mamdani-style progressivism, but may face an uphill battle among moderate Democrats. And state Rep. Derrick Jackson boasts a military record but finished sixth in the 2022 Democratic primary for lieutenant governor.
Bottoms starts with advantages. She’s the best-known of the Democrats running. She’s got executive experience. Being considered by Biden as a possible vice presidential nominee and then joining his administration gave her national fundraising connections. Additionally, Bottoms is the only Black woman in the Democratic field in a state where Black women are the backbone of the party. In 2022, for 10 statewide offices, Georgia Democrats nominated five Black women.
Sheana Browning, who attended the Columbus event, said she liked Bottoms’ promise of pay raises for Browning and fellow state employees. Like 70% of the roughly 125 attendees, Browning is a Black woman. She cited Bottoms’ “previous mayoral status and the fact that she’s a Black woman” as key reasons to vote for her.
But other Democrats bet Bottoms’ early support is soft. A Biden connection could leave many voters cold. And no Black woman has ever been elected governor of any state.
Reminding voters who she is
For Bottoms’ part, she’s seeking to reintroduce herself. She’s reminding voters that her father, a ’60s soul crooner, went to prison for dealing cocaine and that her mother enrolled in cosmetology school at night to support the family. She’s also burnishing her mayoral record. She rattled off a string of accomplishments in questions with reporters in Columbus — building city reserves to $180 million, avoiding property tax increases, giving raises to police and firefighters, creating or preserving 7,000 affordable housing units.
“That sounds pretty successful to me,” Bottoms said.
Bottoms also touts an affordability message, saying she will exempt teachers from state income taxes and do more to create reasonably priced housing, including “cracking down” on companies that rent tens of thousands of single family homes in Georgia.
“I think can really put a dent into this affordability issue that we’re having,” Bottoms said.
A long shadow from 2020
But her mayoral record also poses problems, centering on the challenging summer of 2020. The high point of Bottoms’ political career may have come on May 30, 2020, when she spoke emotionally against violence and disorder in Black Lives Matter protests, upbraiding people who vandalized buildings, looted stores and burned a police car.
“We are better than this! We are better than this as a city, we are better than this as a country!” Bottoms said in a speech that raised her profile as a possible vice presidential pick for Biden. “Go home! Go home!”
But the low point followed weeks later on July 4, when an 8-year-old girl riding in an SUV was shot and killed by armed men occupying makeshift barricades near a Wendy’s burned by demonstrators after police fatally shot a Black man in the parking lot. A “blue flu” of officers called in sick after prosecutors criminally charged two officers in that shooting of Rayshard Brooks. Bottoms said she gave a City Council member more time to negotiate with protesters to leave without police intervention.
“She took the side of the mob over the Atlanta police over and over again,” is how Robinson puts it.
The reelection that never happened
In May 2021, Bottoms became the first Atlanta mayor since World War II not to seek a second term. She later served for a year as Biden’s senior adviser for public engagement, then joined his reelection campaign.
Esteves has been sharpening attacks, telling WXIA-TV that Bottoms is “a former mayor who abandoned the city at a time of crisis, and decided not to run for reelection” and saying Bottoms is one of several candidates who have “baggage that Republicans will be able to focus on.”
Bottoms denies she’s a quitter, saying her political position remained strong and that she would have won reelection. “I ran through the tape,” Bottoms said in May. “We ended the term delivering.”
In May, Atlanta City Council President Doug Shipman and Atlanta City Council members Eshé Collins, Amir Farokhi and Jason Dozier endorsed Esteves. Shipman, elected citywide as City Council president in 2021, said voters told him that year that they were unhappy with crime, garbage collection, and efforts to split the city by letting its Buckhead neighborhood secede.
“I think that that frustration is something that people are going to have to revisit,” Shipman said of the 2026 governor’s primary, saying Democrats need “a fresh start” and “some new energy.”
But Bottoms says her experience and record should carry the day.
“Who I am is a battle-tested leader and what I’ve been saying to people across the state is, I know what it’s like to go into battle,” she said. “I know what it’s like to go up against Donald Trump. I know what it’s like not to back down against Donald Trump.”
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