Georgia elects its first Democratic governor in more than 20 years
Keisha Lance Bottoms won Georgia’s governor race on November 3, 2026, according to an Associated Press race call reported by NPR. The 56-year-old will be the first Black female governor elected in the country, and she defeated Republican Rick Jackson, a billionaire healthcare executive endorsed by President Trump.
The race call also gives the Democrats their first Georgia governorship in more than 20 years and breaks the Republican hold on state government. Since Trump lost Georgia in 2020, the state has evolved from one that consistently elected Republicans to federal and state office into a swing state with Democratic senators; Trump won the state again in 2024. The governor’s office and legislature, however, remained solidly Republican before Bottoms’ victory.
Bottoms will likely work with a Republican majority in at least one chamber of the legislature. Fully expanding Medicaid in the state, which would require legislative approval, was a top campaign promise throughout the race. Her other proposals included allowing local municipalities to eliminate the sales tax on groceries and eliminating the state income tax for public school teachers; those proposals would also face a legislature where Republicans are likely to hold at least one chamber.
Georgia leads the nation in new data center construction, and data centers emerged as a top campaign issue. Bottoms said she backs a moratorium on new data centers. “We need experts in this field to sit around the table and tell us and give us guidance as to how the state of Georgia should move forward,” Bottoms said in October, during her only gubernatorial debate with Jackson.
Before running for governor, Bottoms served as mayor of Atlanta from 2018 to 2022. During her tenure, the city grappled with the COVID-19 pandemic and the social unrest seen in other major cities at the time. She declined to run for a second term and instead served as an adviser in the Biden administration. Jackson used her record as mayor against her in attack ads, claiming she abandoned the city after allowing crime to fester. NPR reported that Atlanta, like many other major cities, saw an increase in crime during the pandemic.
NPR characterized Bottoms’ campaign as harnessing frustration against Trump to propel it. She promised to stand up to the Trump administration while in office and to find relief for high prices. Bottoms also highlighted Trump’s endorsement of Jackson throughout her campaign.
Jackson had aligned himself with Trump during the primaries, but later distanced himself from the president by removing references to him from his website and leaving Trump’s name out of speeches on the campaign trail. Instead, he allied himself with Georgia’s current governor, Brian Kemp, who endorsed him after the primary.
Bottoms drew endorsements from several high-profile Democrats, including former presidents Joe Biden and Barack Obama. She also regularly campaigned with Sen. Jon Ossoff, one of Georgia’s two Democratic U.S. senators.
NPR’s report credits Sarah Kallis, the politics reporter at Georgia Public Broadcasting.