Meet Keisha Lance Bottoms, first black woman elected Governor of US State

Democrat Keisha Lance Bottoms has made history after winning Georgia’s gubernatorial election, becoming the first Black woman elected governor of a US state. Bottoms, a former mayor of Atlanta, defeated Republican businessman Rick Jackson in Tuesday’s election, according to projections by US media, securing a landmark victory for Democrats in one of the country’s most closely contested political battlegrounds.

The 56-year-old will also become Georgia’s first female governor, succeeding Republican Brian Kemp, who is leaving office after serving two consecutive terms. Beyond her political career in Georgia, Bottoms previously served as a senior adviser to former US President Joe Biden and director of the White House Office of Public Engagement. Her victory represents a significant milestone for Black women in American politics, who have historically played an important role in the Democratic Party but remain underrepresented in the country’s highest elected positions.

Bottoms’ achievement came on the same night Stacey Plaskett was elected governor of the US Virgin Islands, becoming the first Black woman to lead a US jurisdiction. In Florida, Republican US Representative Byron Donalds also won the governorship, making him the first Black Republican elected governor in the United States. Bottoms’ victory marks a major political shift in Georgia, where Black voters have formed a central part of the Demo cratic coalition that helped transform the traditionally Republican state into a national electoral battleground.

Republicans had controlled Georgia’s governorship for more than two decades before her election. Her Republican opponent, Jackson, is a billionaire businessman and founder of healthcare staffing company Jackson Healthcare. He campaigned as a political outsider, promising tax cuts, improved public safety and reduced government regulation. Bottoms’ emergence as governor comes eight years after fellow Democrat Stacey Abrams became the first Black woman nominated for governor by a major US political party.

Although Abrams lost Georgia’s gubernatorial elections in 2018 and 2022, her campaigns helped build a multigenerational and multiracial coalition that increased Democratic voter participation. The mobilisation also contributed to the election of two Democratic US senators and helped deliver Georgia’s electoral votes to a Democratic presidential candidate for the first time in decades.

Bottoms’ election now adds another chapter to the growing representation of Black women in American political leadership.