Keisha Lance Bottoms Wins Georgia Governor's Race, First Black Woman Elected Governor in US

Democrat Keisha Lance Bottoms, a former Atlanta mayor, won Georgia's governor's race on Tuesday, November 3, 2026, defeating Republican billionaire healthcare executive Rick Jackson. Media projections showed she is the first Black woman elected governor of any US state. NBC News and Decision Desk HQ called the race about two hours after polls closed at 7 p.m. Bottoms led 55.4% to 44.6% with 75% of votes counted, and 54.2% to 45.8% with about 85% counted. Her win gives Democrats the governorship for the first time in more than two decades; Republicans have held the state legislature and governor's office since 2005. Gov. Brian Kemp, a Republican, was term-limited. President Donald Trump endorsed Jackson in July and campaigned with him near Atlanta, while Barack Obama rallied for Bottoms in late October. Jackson put tens of millions of his own money into the race. Bottoms was mayor from 2018 to 2022 and later worked in the Biden White House. Sen. Jon Ossoff also won re-election over Rep. Mike Collins.

The Blaze and Breitbart, on the right, call the result a shock. The Blaze says Jackson's moderate approach did not help him. Breitbart's headline stresses the first Democratic governor in over 20 years and calls the race a bellwether. It adds that Bottoms had trailed narrowly in polls and links her exit as mayor to a crime spike. Rolling Stone and NPR, on the left, lead with history. Rolling Stone describes a Democratic sweep of Congress as a rebuke of Trump and notes Bottoms was outspent. NPR lists nine historic winners, including the first Native American woman governor. Both sides report the same core result and her record. Al Jazeera and The Hindu mostly match that account, though The Hindu adds Trump's and Obama's roles.