Five years after deciding to serve a single term as Atlanta’s mayor, Keisha Lance Bottoms is mounting a significant bid for governor of Georgia, testing the limits of a political comeback amid a divided electorate. Bottoms, who held the mayor’s office from 2018 to 2022, has faced considerable challenges during her tenure, grappling with the COVID-19 pandemic, escalating protests and unrest following the murder of George Floyd, and surging crime rates in the city.
Bottoms announced early in 2019 that she would not seek re-election, citing the extraordinary pressures of the office during unprecedented times. She described her leadership as a “graceful passing of the baton,” emphasizing the difficult circumstances that marked her administration, including contentious disputes with state and federal officials over pandemic restrictions and public safety measures. Since leaving office, she served as a senior adviser in the Biden administration before launching her gubernatorial campaign this year.
Her Republican opponent, Rick Jackson, has criticized Bottoms for leaving Atlanta "in flames" amid rising violence and social unrest, leveraging images of burning vehicles and violent incidents in political advertisements. Jackson's campaign portrays her tenure as emblematic of failed leadership. Supporters of Bottoms dispute this characterization, attributing many of the challenges she faced to broader national crises, including the pandemic and the nationwide reckoning on racial justice. Still, some voters and political analysts remain skeptical, questioning both her decision not to seek a second term and her overall performance managing the city through a turbulent period.
During her time as mayor, Bottoms initially gained praise for her handling of the early months of the pandemic, resisting efforts by the state government to roll back public health measures. She also gained national recognition for her response to protests related to George Floyd’s killing, delivering a notable speech denouncing violence while acknowledging the deep-seated frustrations underlying the demonstrations. Despite those efforts, her administration struggled to contain rising crime rates and tensions within the Atlanta Police Department following several high-profile incidents, including the fatal shooting of Rashard Brooks by a police officer and an attack on a vehicle that resulted in the death of an 8-year-old girl.
The combination of public health crises, civil unrest, and increasing violence posed significant challenges for Bottoms and other mayors across the country, many of whom saw their political futures altered by the strain. Analysts note that voters nationwide punished incumbents in some cases while others chose to step aside amid the pressures of the moment.
In Georgia, Bottoms secured the Democratic nomination decisively, defying expectations of a runoff, and has narrowed polling margins against Jackson despite his substantial financial advantage. Her campaign frames the gubernatorial race as a referendum on former President Donald Trump and broader voter frustrations over inflation, healthcare costs, and fuel prices. A victory would make her both Georgia’s first Democratic governor in nearly 20 years and the first Black woman elected governor in the United States.
Voters remain divided over Bottoms’s record and the wisdom of her political return. Some praise her resilience and efforts amid exceptionally difficult circumstances, while others criticize her for not owning certain missteps. Bottoms has defended her tenure by highlighting fiscal responsibility, including balanced budgets and generous pay raises for public safety personnel, and insists she is prepared to seek re-election if she wins the governorship.
As the election approaches, Bottoms’s campaign faces the task of persuading voters that the challenges of her mayoral years were not solely her burden to bear and that her leadership experience equips her to govern the state through ongoing national and local challenges.