Georgia is now "a blue state," Governor-elect Keisha Lance Bottoms declared Sunday, pointing to recent Democratic electoral successes as proof that the state is shifting away from its long-held Republican leanings.
"I think it's safe to say that we are a blue state," Bottoms said on ABC's "This Week." "I said throughout the course of this campaign that we would show people across Georgia and across the nation that sending Sens. [Jon] Ossoff and [Raphael] Warnock to the Senate and flipping Georgia blue in '20 was not a fluke, that we were on a path towards truly showing everyone that we were solidly blue, and we showed that in a really big way on Tuesday."
Bottoms, who is set to become Georgia's first female governor and first Black governor, is the first Black woman elected governor in the United States. Democrats are projected to win every statewide office in Georgia, including lieutenant governor, attorney general, and secretary of state. They are also poised to control the state house for the first time in 22 years.
Bottoms stated that she made a conscious effort to campaign in areas that had previously voted for Donald Trump, aiming to listen to the concerns of residents across the state, not just Democrats. "At the end of the day, the issues that we're facing transcend party lines," she said.
She also addressed the prospect of working with the current administration, noting potential challenges. "I was [Atlanta's] mayor under the first Trump administration. There were a couple of reasonable voices that we were able to communicate with," Bottoms recalled. However, she expressed uncertainty about finding such voices now, especially following the White House chief of staff transition.
Reflecting on her historic victory, Bottoms shared a poignant experience visiting the gravesite of her enslaved great great grandmother, Betsy Peake, on election day. She described it as "one of the most moving experiences I've had in my life."