Election Night 2026 · Updated Nov. 3, 2026
Keisha Lance Bottoms will be the next governor of Georgia. The Associated Press, CBS News and NBC News all projected Tuesday night that the former Atlanta mayor and Democrat had defeated Republican billionaire Rick Jackson, flipping a governor’s mansion Republicans have held since 2003.
With most of the vote counted, Bottoms was carrying roughly 55 percent of the vote, according to AP figures. Libertarian Chase Oliver was also on the ballot.
Bottoms becomes the first Democrat to win the Georgia governorship since 1998. She will be the first woman and the first Black person to serve as governor of Georgia, and the first Black woman ever elected governor of any U.S. state, pending the result in Minnesota (see below). Only three Black governors have ever been elected in American history before her, all of them Democratic men.
Her win also breaks the Republican hold on all three branches of Georgia’s state government, ending a GOP trifecta in one of the country’s most closely watched states.
Jackson concedes
Jackson, 72, the founder of Jackson Healthcare and a first-time candidate, conceded Tuesday night. “Tonight, the voters spoke ... and I respect their decision,” he said, adding that Bottoms “deserves our congratulations and our prayers as she prepares to take office,” according to FOX 5 Atlanta.
Jackson put more than $200 million of his own money into the race, one of the largest self-funded campaigns for governor in U.S. history. He won the Republican nomination by beating Lt. Gov. Burt Jones in a runoff, picked up Donald Trump’s endorsement in July, campaigned with outgoing Gov. Brian Kemp and pledged to “build on Brian Kemp’s legacy.” His central attack on Bottoms was a single line: “bad mayors don’t make good governors.”
Georgia voters did not buy it.
Who she is
Bottoms, 56, was born in Atlanta on Jan. 18, 1970, the daughter of R&B singer Major Lance. She graduated from Florida A&M University (yes, FAMU, right here in Tallahassee) and earned her law degree at Georgia State University. She worked as a prosecutor and a magistrate judge, served on the Atlanta City Council and was elected mayor of Atlanta in 2017.
She led the city from 2018 to 2022 through the pandemic and the 2020 protests, then chose not to seek a second term. She went on to serve as a senior adviser in the Biden White House. After Trump returned to office, he removed her from the President’s Export Council.
National Democrats lined up behind her. Barack Obama endorsed her on Oct. 8 and rallied with her and Sen. Jon Ossoff in Georgia on Oct. 28. Ossoff was re-elected the same night Bottoms won.
Her victory comes eight years after Stacey Abrams fell about 55,000 votes short of the governorship in 2018. It is the third straight cycle in which a Black woman has led the Democratic ticket in Georgia, and the first time one has won.
What she promised
Bottoms has called Medicaid expansion her “number one priority.” She has pledged to scrap Georgia Pathways, the state’s work-requirement program, and said she “will immediately begin to prepare our state agencies to expand Medicaid.” Supporters estimate expansion would cover roughly 300,000 uninsured Georgians.
Her platform also includes:
A $15 minimum wage
A state housing trust fund
Tuition-free technical college
Exempting teachers from state income tax
Higher pay for teachers, firefighters and police
A pause on new data centers and limits on Flock license-plate camera expansion
“What we do in this moment will echo through history,” Bottoms told supporters before Election Day.
The Minnesota caveat
One race could change the “first” headline. Minnesota’s governor race had not been called as of Tuesday night. Republican Lisa Demuth, who is also Black, held an early lead there. Minnesota’s new governor is sworn in before Georgia’s, so if Demuth wins, she would technically take office first. Either way, Bottoms is the first Black woman elected governor of Georgia and the first Democrat to win the office in nearly 30 years.
Why it matters
Georgia’s new governor will hold real power heading into 2028. If Ossoff or Sen. Raphael Warnock were to win the presidency or vice presidency, Bottoms would appoint a temporary replacement to the U.S. Senate, Axios notes.
And the contrast with Florida could not be sharper. On the same night, Florida voters elected Byron Donalds, the state’s first Black governor, on a platform of continuing the DeSantis agenda. Next door, a FAMU graduate won Georgia by promising to expand Medicaid. Florida remains one of roughly 10 states that still refuse to.
Related: Opinion: Florida Is for Sale · Opinion: Moody, Hope Florida and the Sick Kids · Live Florida election results
Sources: Associated Press · CBS News · NBC News · FOX 5 Atlanta · Georgia Recorder · Axios Atlanta · OPB/AP · The Washington Post