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ATLANTA - Keisha Lance Bottoms shattered one of the nation's longest-standing political barriers Tuesday, Nov. 3, becoming the first Black woman elected governor of a U.S. state as Georgia voters delivered a series of victories that will dramatically expand women's representation in the state's highest offices.
PREVIOUS STORY: Keisha Lance Bottoms wins Georgia governor race in historic election
What we know:
The former Atlanta mayor defeated Republican businessman Rick Jackson in a race that had been expected to be close, winning approximately 54% of the vote to Jackson's 46%. She will become Georgia's 84th governor in January, succeeding Republican Gov. Brian Kemp and ending nearly 24 years of Republican control of the governor's office.
But Bottoms was far from the only woman celebrating a breakthrough on election night.
Women won at least eight Georgia statewide races, including contests for attorney general, secretary of state, agriculture commissioner, labor commissioner, insurance commissioner, state school superintendent and a seat on the Public Service Commission.
All eight winners are Democrats, part of a statewide sweep that also included victories by U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff and lieutenant governor-elect Josh McLaurin.
The results will transform Georgia's executive leadership. Before Tuesday's election, men held the governor's office, attorney general's office, secretary of state's office and several other top state positions. Beginning in January, women will lead many of those agencies for the first time.
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The election also reflected a broader national milestone for women seeking executive office, with several states electing women governors who broke racial and ethnic barriers.
From Atlanta City Hall to the Governor's Mansion
The backstory:
Bottoms' victory represents the culmination of a political career that began in Atlanta city government and eventually took her to the White House.
She served on the Atlanta City Council from 2010 to 2017 before winning the mayor's race and taking office in 2018 as Atlanta's 60th mayor. She served one term, leaving office in 2022 after deciding not to seek reelection.
Georgia governor candidate profile: Keisha Lance Bottoms
Bottoms later joined President Joe Biden's administration, serving as director of the White House Office of Public Engagement from 2022 to 2023.
Her tenure as Atlanta mayor included some of the city's most challenging years, including the COVID-19 pandemic, protests over racial injustice and public safety concerns.
Bottoms frequently clashed with Kemp over pandemic restrictions, including mask mandates and business closures. Her administration also faced criticism following the police shooting of Rayshard Brooks in 2020 and the fatal shooting of 8-year-old Secoriea Turner near the site of Brooks' death.
During her time at City Hall, Bottoms established Atlanta's first fully staffed office of equity, diversity and inclusion, eliminated cash bail for certain city offenses and launched Open Checkbook, a platform designed to make municipal spending more transparent.
She also oversaw Atlanta's preparations for Super Bowl LIII in 2019.
A family history stretching back to slavery
Dig deeper:
Bottoms acknowledged the historic significance of her victory by reflecting on her family's history and the generations that came before her.
During her victory speech, she described visiting the grave of her great-great-grandmother, Betsy Peek, who was born approximately 20 years before emancipation.
"I don't know what dreams Betsy Peek had for her children or for her grandchildren, or the generations that she would never meet," Bottoms told supporters. "But I know I am standing on shoulders made of steel."
Her family's history also includes Sheppard Peek, an enslaved ancestor whose name appeared in an 1860 record from Crawfordville, Georgia. The document listed him among the property of a white enslaver, with an assigned monetary value of $1,400.
More than 160 years later, his descendant has been elected to lead the state where he was enslaved.
Bottoms joins a small group of Black Americans elected governor. Before 2026, that group included L. Douglas Wilder of Virginia, Deval Patrick of Massachusetts and Wes Moore of Maryland. The 2026 election also brought victories by Byron Donalds in Florida and David Crowley in Wisconsin. Bottoms is the first Black woman among them.
Her victory follows two unsuccessful gubernatorial campaigns by Democrat Stacey Abrams, who ran against Kemp in 2018 and 2022.
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What Bottoms has promised Georgians
What they're saying:
Throughout her campaign, Bottoms emphasized affordability, health care, education and public safety.
Her proposals include expanding Medicaid eligibility, raising Georgia's minimum wage to $15 an hour and increasing pay for teachers, firefighters and police officers.
She also wants to give local governments greater flexibility to eliminate taxes on groceries, diapers and feminine hygiene products.
On education, Bottoms has called for fully funding Georgia's prekindergarten program and expanding eligibility to 3-year-old children.
Her transportation proposals include reducing state gasoline and diesel taxes, eliminating Georgia's 2.25% auto insurance premium tax and requiring insurers to pass those savings along to drivers.
Bottoms has also proposed limiting automobile insurers to one rate increase annually and exploring alternative transportation funding through corporate partnerships.
Other campaign proposals include temporarily halting new data center development, restricting the expansion of Flock automated license plate reader cameras and allowing voters to decide whether Georgia should legalize casino gambling.
Turning those proposals into law could require cooperation from Republican lawmakers, depending on the final composition of the General Assembly.
Eight women win statewide offices in Georgia
Local perspective:
While Bottoms' victory attracted national attention, seven other women were declared winners in Georgia statewide contests Tuesday.
Women who won statewide races in Georgia
Keisha Lance Bottoms — Governor: Defeated Republican Rick Jackson.
Penny Brown Reynolds — Secretary of state: Defeated Republican Tim Fleming.
Tanya Miller — Attorney general: Defeated Republican Brian Strickland.
Katherine Juhan-Arnold — Agriculture commissioner: Defeated Republican Tyler Harper.
Nikki Porcher — Labor commissioner: Defeated Republican Bárbara Rivera Holmes.
Keisha Sean Waites — Insurance commissioner: Defeated Republican John King.
Lydia Powell — State school superintendent: Defeated Republican Richard Woods.
Shelia Edwards — Public Service Commission, District 5: Defeated Republican Josh Tolbert.
Two of those victories, beyond Bottoms' election, represent especially notable firsts.
Penny Brown Reynolds, a former Fulton County judge, will become the first Black woman elected Georgia secretary of state. She previously worked in civil rights and equal employment opportunity roles at the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
MAP: How Georgia elected its first Democratic Secretary of State in decades
Reynolds will succeed Brad Raffensperger, who sought the Republican gubernatorial nomination rather than reelection.
Although Reynolds is the first Black woman elected to the position, she is not the first to hold it. Robyn Crittenden briefly served as Georgia secretary of state following an appointment by Gov. Nathan Deal.
During her victory remarks, Reynolds emphasized voting access.
"When you think about all that we have been going through as it relates to the right to vote, I said over a year ago that a vote should be a right and not a fight," Reynolds said.
Tanya Miller also made history, becoming the first woman elected Georgia attorney general.
A former federal prosecutor and Fulton County prosecutor, Miller entered the Georgia House of Representatives in 2023 and later chaired the House Democratic Caucus.
She defeated Republican state Sen. Brian Strickland and will succeed Chris Carr, who also sought the Republican nomination for governor.
Miller has identified combating violent crime, human trafficking, gangs and consumer fraud as priorities.
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Her election places a woman at the head of Georgia's Department of Law for the first time.
The other victories mean women will lead several agencies overseeing education, agriculture, insurance and labor policy, along with holding a seat on the commission responsible for regulating certain public utilities.
Women already held influential offices in Georgia
Dig deeper:
While Keisha Lance Bottoms and other female candidates made history in Tuesday's election, women were already serving in prominent positions throughout Georgia government.
Before the 2026 midterm elections, women held 77 of the Georgia General Assembly's 236 seats, accounting for 32.6% of state lawmakers, according to the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University.
That included 12 women in the 56-member state Senate and 65 women in the 180-member state House.
The percentage was down from 34.7% in 2024, when women held 82 legislative seats.
Women also represented Georgia in Congress and held positions overseeing state labor policy and public utilities.
Women who were already serving in prominent positions
Among the women holding significant offices before Tuesday's election were:
Nikema Williams (D) — U.S. representative for Georgia's 5th Congressional District.
Lucy McBath (D) — U.S. representative for Georgia's 6th Congressional District.
Bárbara Rivera Holmes (R) — Georgia labor commissioner, appointed in 2025. She became the first Latina to hold statewide office in Georgia but lost Tuesday's election to Nikki Porcher.
Alicia M. Johnson — Georgia Public Service commissioner.
Jan Jones (R) — Speaker pro tempore of the Georgia House, one of the chamber's highest-ranking leadership positions.
Carolyn Hugley (D) — Georgia House minority leader, responsible for leading the chamber's Democratic caucus.
Sarah Hawkins Warren — Presiding justice of the Georgia Supreme Court.
Carla Wong McMillian — Georgia Supreme Court justice and the first Asian American woman appointed to the state's highest court.
Shawn Ellen LaGrua — Georgia Supreme Court justice.
Verda M. Colvin — Georgia Supreme Court justice.
These officeholders represent both political parties, as well as nonpartisan judicial positions.
How does that compare with women in office before the election?
The difference is especially striking among Georgia's top elected executive officials.
Before Tuesday's election, Georgia had never elected a woman governor or attorney general. Its sitting governor, lieutenant governor, secretary of state, attorney general, agriculture commissioner, insurance commissioner and state school superintendent were men.
The labor commissioner's office was held by Bárbara Rivera Holmes, a Republican, who lost to Democrat Nikki Porcher. Holmes' defeat illustrates why the election results cannot simply be described as eight additional women entering government: Some women are replacing other women.
The results establish that women will hold seven of Georgia's eight major statewide executive offices beginning in January, with lieutenant governor-elect Josh McLaurin as the exception.
That represents a substantial change in who will lead Georgia's executive branch.
The eighth woman counted among Tuesday's statewide winners, Shelia Edwards, won a Public Service Commission seat, a separate regulatory office.
A complete before-and-after comparison of all women serving in Georgia government would also need to account for the state Legislature, congressional delegation, judiciary and local offices. Those figures are not included in this comparison.
Three women win Georgia congressional races
Women also secured victories in Georgia's U.S. House elections, including two returning members of Congress and one newly elected representative.
Democratic Reps. Nikema Williams and Lucy McBath won reelection in the 5th and 6th Congressional Districts, respectively.
In the 13th Congressional District, Democrat Jasmine Clark won the seat previously held by the late Rep. David Scott. Clark's victory adds another woman to Georgia's congressional delegation.
Together with the eight statewide winners, those congressional victories bring the number of women identified in these races to at least 11.
The total is not a comprehensive count of all female winners in Georgia. Additional women won or were leading in state legislative and local contests, and those results would need to be reviewed individually before reporting a statewide total.
Georgia's election part of national breakthroughs for women
Bottoms' victory came during an election in which women achieved several other historic firsts in gubernatorial races across the country.
In Texas, Democrat Gina Hinojosa became the state's first Latina governor, while Democrat Deb Haaland won in New Mexico, becoming the first Native American woman elected to lead a U.S. state.
Another milestone came in the U.S. Virgin Islands, where Stacey Plaskett became the first Black woman elected governor of a U.S. jurisdiction. Unlike Bottoms, who will govern one of the 50 states, Plaskett will lead a U.S. territory.
RELATED: Stacey Plaskett elected first woman governor of the U.S. Virgin Islands
The victories come at a time when women already hold a record number of governorships.
According to the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University, a record 14 women — 10 Democrats and four Republicans — were serving as governors before the 2026 election.
However, six of those governors were leaving office because of term limits or retirement, meaning the election of new women governors would not necessarily produce an equivalent net increase in female representation.
The center also reported that 97 women held statewide elective executive offices nationwide before the election, including governors. Maintaining that number would require victories by at least 36 women who were not incumbents.
The organization documented a record number of major-party female gubernatorial candidates in 2026, including a record number of Democratic women seeking governor's offices.
Those figures underscore an important distinction: Although Tuesday produced significant breakthroughs, the full national impact on women's representation will depend on how many women ultimately take office, how many incumbents depart and the final results of outstanding races.
Women continue breaking barriers in Congress
The 2026 election also offered opportunities for women to expand their representation in Congress.
Before Election Day, 125 women served in the U.S. House, according to Rutgers' Center for American Women and Politics. The previous record was 127, reached between November 2024 and January 2025.
A total of 271 women were major-party nominees for the House in 2026, including 198 Democrats and 73 Republicans.
However, 17 incumbent women were leaving the chamber, meaning at least that many newcomers would have to win simply to maintain the existing level of representation.
The final number of women serving in the next Congress was not yet established in the research reviewed for this story.
What happens next for Georgia's new leaders?
Bottoms and the other newly elected statewide officials are expected to take office in January 2027, beginning a new period of Democratic leadership in Georgia.
The transition will put women in charge of agencies responsible for some of the state's most consequential decisions, including elections, law enforcement, education, insurance regulation and economic policy.
For Bottoms, the next challenge will be turning campaign proposals into legislation and navigating a state government where control of the General Assembly could complicate her agenda.
During her victory speech, Bottoms pledged to represent all Georgians, regardless of their political affiliations.
"Tonight should remind us all that no matter what community we come from, Georgia is not defined by one moment in time or by one person," she said. "It's been defined by all of us."
"And I will be a governor for everyone in this state."
Her election will be remembered as a historic first. But Tuesday's results also point to a broader change: Women will enter 2027 holding a substantially larger share of Georgia's most powerful statewide offices, with their decisions shaping the state's political direction for years to come.
Reporting note: This story distinguishes projected election winners from certified results. The eight-woman statewide count includes seven major executive offices and one Public Service Commission seat. The 11-woman count additionally includes three U.S. House winners; it is not a complete tally of Georgia's legislative, judicial and local races. National preelection figures come from Rutgers University's Center for American Women and Politics and should not be presented as final postelection totals.