Georgia’s Keisha Lance Bottoms makes US history as first Black woman to be elected state governor

Keisha Lance Bottoms has won Georgia’s gubernatorial race, making her the first Black woman elected governor in the United States. Her victory in a state long seen as politically competitive is also a setback for Republican businessman Rick Jackson, who had been favoured to win until the campaign’s final days.

Bottoms, 56, is a former Atlanta mayor, attorney and magistrate judge who later served in the Biden administration as a senior adviser and director of the White House Office of Public Engagement. Jackson spent more than $100 million of his personal fortune on the campaign. Bottoms campaigned with Barack Obama and re-elected senator Jon Ossoff, and ran on affordability, expanding Medicaid and reversing state abortion restrictions.