Georgia Governor Candidate Faces Historic Barrier and Political Attacks

Keisha Lance Bottoms, the Democratic nominee for Georgia governor, is campaigning on her policy goals while confronting a historical precedent and a challenging political landscape. If elected, she would be the first Black woman to hold the office of governor in any U.S. state. Bottoms, a former Atlanta mayor and onetime White House adviser to President Joe Biden, is running in a state where her family history traces back to antebellum enslavement.

Bottoms, 56, has stated that she is at least a fifth-generation Georgian, with her family lineage traceable to a plantation in Crawfordville. While she generally avoids explicit discussion of race, slavery, or Jim Crow segregation, these historical contexts shadow her campaign against Republican nominee Rick Jackson, a 72-year-old billionaire. Jackson has characterized Bottoms' four-year term as mayor as a period of decline marked by crime. This narrative has been amplified by other Republicans, including former President Donald Trump, who has accused Bottoms of ruining Atlanta.

"It’s a long-standing playbook to paint Atlanta as this big bad place," Bottoms said, dismissing these criticisms. She recently released an advertisement featuring footage of her news conference with law enforcement leaders during the 2020 street protests following the police killing of Rayshard Brooks in Atlanta. During the protests, she urged demonstrators to go home, stating, "We are better than this."

Bottoms is scheduled to appear at a rally headlined by former President Barack Obama. The Republican coalition in Georgia is largely white and concentrated in suburbs and smaller towns, demographics that often view large cities and their leadership skeptically. The rhetoric directed at Bottoms has been seen by some supporters as steeped in racial and gender biases, particularly in a state where all 83 governors since 1776 have been white men.

Jackson’s campaign, funded by over $200 million of his personal wealth, has featured advertisements using footage of the 2020 Atlanta demonstrations and violence, alongside images of Bottoms. These protests occurred after the fatal shooting of Rayshard Brooks by a white Atlanta police officer.

Bottoms' gubernatorial bid marks the third consecutive election cycle where Georgia Democrats have nominated a Black woman for the position. Stacey Abrams lost the governor's race in 2018 and 2022 to Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, who is nearing the end of his second term. Abrams, who came closer than any Black woman before her to winning the governorship, has been hesitant to attribute her defeats solely to race and gender but noted that Black women candidates for governor may face a higher bar due to the lack of precedent for voters to gauge executive experience.

Abrams suggested that the standard for executive experience is not applied equally to all candidates. She stated that Bottoms "has a sound argument" for the governorship due to her experience as mayor, building on her prior roles as a City Council member, magistrate judge, and prosecutor. Abrams and others believe this background is why Republicans have aggressively criticized Bottoms' experience, with Jackson repeatedly stating, "Bad mayors don’t make good governors."

Jackson has also criticized Bottoms' decision to leave her mayoral post before completing her term to join the Biden White House as a senior adviser, framing it as abandoning Atlanta. Other conservatives have made stronger accusations, such as former Atlanta police officer and state insurance commissioner John King, who has claimed Bottoms "let Atlanta burn," referring to the arson of a Wendy's restaurant near where Brooks was killed. This reference carries historical weight in Atlanta, a city whose symbol is the phoenix rising from ashes, referencing its destruction and rebuilding during the Civil War.

At a recent rally in Macon, Trump reiterated his criticisms, asserting that Bottoms "destroyed Atlanta with her crime and filth and constant riots." He contrasted this with his view of Atlanta as a once-great city that is no longer considered so. This echoes past remarks Trump made about Georgia Congressman John Lewis's district, which he described as "crime-infested" and "falling apart."

While Atlanta did experience a crime increase during Bottoms' tenure, federal statistics indicate this was not an anomaly amid the nationwide surge during the COVID-19 pandemic. Crime rates in both the U.S. and Atlanta have since declined significantly. Bottoms also enacted an executive order to prevent the Atlanta jail from holding federal immigration detainees and signed a city ordinance that eliminated cash bail for certain nonviolent offenses, aiming to reduce jail populations and perceived excessive punishment for minor offenses.

Bottoms' campaign has recently seen a surge in fundraising, allowing for new advertising that highlights her response to the 2020 protests. The ads portray her as a strong and empathetic leader, aware of public safety and the realities faced by Black Americans. Her campaign also emphasizes her policy priorities, including economic development and expanding Medicaid eligibility, which they believe would benefit both urban and rural populations across racial lines. Bottoms stated her motivation as a mother to care deeply about the state's future.