Georgia Democrats are anxious about their leading candidate potentially squandering a rare opportunity to secure the governor’s office this year.
Keisha Lance Bottoms boasts a strong résumé with roles as a judge, city council member, mayor of Atlanta, and senior White House adviser. She is leading in primary polls, benefiting from her high name recognition in the Atlanta metro area.
Still, a third of Democratic voters remain undecided, and her most prominent endorsement is from former President Joe Biden, who departed office unpopular among the American public.
Concerns among Georgia Democrats arise from doubts about Bottoms’ capacity to win a general election, as revealed by discussions with multiple strategists and officials. They caution that her experience leading Atlanta, the state’s largest city, could hinder her campaign. Her tenure was characterized by challenges, including the pandemic, social unrest, and increased crime rates.
Democrats fear that Bottoms might jeopardize their best chance to reclaim the governorship after two decades.
“Keisha, because she’s so strongly identified with the city of Atlanta, obviously faces a very high hurdle,” said Howard Franklin, a Georgia-based Democratic strategist who is unaffiliated in the primary. “I don’t think there’s anybody who’s paying attention to this race who thinks that Republicans are anything less than prepared to criticize and to pile on to the criticism of the four years that she was in office.”
Some Democrats, speaking anonymously, worry that her record could be easily targeted by Republicans in the general election, exposing her to attacks on public safety issues.
“The Republicans will eat her for lunch. The Republicans are begging us to nominate her,” said one longtime Democratic strategist unaffiliated with the race. “If she’s at the top of the ticket, the whole ticket loses. If she’s not … we can sweep it. The stakes are that high.”
TaNisha Cameron, a spokesperson for Bottoms’ campaign, dismissed these concerns as mere political hand-wringing and emphasized that Bottoms is focused on “standing up to Donald Trump’s candidate for governor.”
“Political insiders have underestimated Keisha Lance Bottoms her entire career, and she has constantly proven them wrong by winning elections and beating their hand-picked candidates. Keisha is leading in the polls in both the primary and general election because voters like her vision for Georgia’s future and her record of delivering for the people of Atlanta,” Cameron stated, highlighting Bottoms’ success in attracting nine Fortune 500 companies to Atlanta and leaving the city with a $180 million budget surplus.
Bottoms’ campaign promises include expanding Medicaid in Georgia and ensuring universal pre-K statewide. She also released a comprehensive plan to protect voting rights in Georgia, just weeks after the Supreme Court limited the Voting Rights Act.
This election could be the Democrats’ last chance in a generation to seize full political control in Georgia. Republican Governor Brian Kemp plans to redraw the state’s congressional and legislative districts before 2028. Meanwhile, as Donald Trump revisits grievances about the 2020 election, leading GOP gubernatorial candidates continue to sow doubts about Georgia’s voting systems, making the state pivotal for the 2028 presidential race.
Each of Bottoms’ Democratic primary opponents has carved out individual campaign strategies: Michael Thurmond, a former DeKalb County executive, as the experienced hand; Jason Esteves, a former state senator, as the progressive leader; and Geoff Duncan, a Republican-turned-Democrat, as a moderate appealing to centrist voters.
These three contenders have been in a statistical tie for second place for months, collectively keeping Bottoms below the 50 percent needed to secure an outright primary victory.
“It’s unfortunate right now, but in the state of Georgia versus what we saw in 2018 with Stacey Abrams, or what we saw with Warnock — we’re missing the light,” said Cobb County Democratic Chair Essence Johnson, who remains neutral in the primary. “We don’t have a true, strong light, because there’s so many differences. It’s great, because that shows what democracy is. But again, there’s a lot of candidates.”
However, some Democrats see no major issue with Bottoms’ potential nomination, especially with the GOP facing challenges such as Trump’s declining approval ratings and messaging difficulties on voter concerns about the cost of living and an unpopular war in Iran.
“The Republican Party is very underwater. I think the Republican Party is more underwater than Keisha Lance Bottoms is,” said John Jackson, the former DeKalb County Democratic Chair. “At the end of the day, she’s a competitive general election candidate.”
An early general election poll shows Bottoms leading the top three Republican candidates, though all within the survey’s margin of error.
A victory for Bottoms would be historic, marking her as the first Black woman governor in the United States and the first Black governor of Georgia.
Attention on Bottoms’ handling of public safety issues has intensified, similar to other Black women leaders like Lori Lightfoot of Chicago and Muriel Bowser of D.C., who faced scrutiny while managing cities during the pandemic and nationwide protests.
Bottoms’ supporters remain confident in her appeal to voters.
“I have seen the kind of hand-wringing, and it is predominantly coming from very, very, insider politico Atlanta circles,” said Kristen Kiefer, Democratic chair in Houston County. “What we saw from here, far from Atlanta, was somebody that was willing to stand up to the governor over mask mandates. What we saw during social unrest was the city of Atlanta was making space for peaceful protests, but then, too, we all remember the night that Keisha was on TV with Killer Mike and T.I. telling everyone to go home and being ready to shut it down when it got out of hand.”
Yet, some Democrats are still concerned that Bottoms could hinder their chances, even in a favorable midterm year.
“Most Democrats who are being honest are nervous about the campaign of Mayor Bottoms, who, to be clear, brings a lot of strengths to the race,” said Andrew Heaton, a Georgia-based Democratic strategist. “[Republicans] are going to have to find messages against the other candidates. They’ve already got the attack ads on Mayor Bottoms written.”
Bottoms highlights her achievements as mayor on the campaign trail, including expanding affordable housing and authorizing pay raises for law enforcement. Nonetheless, her decision not to seek a second mayoral term in 2021, amid unrest in Atlanta, still lingers.
“She’s got to answer some questions. She’s got to be able to answer these questions well: Why didn’t you run for reelection as mayor of Atlanta? There’s a perception that she ran away from that job,” said Jackson, whose term as DeKalb County Democratic Chair overlapped with Bottoms’ mayoral tenure.
At that time, Bottoms stated in a press conference that it was “time to pass the baton on to someone else,” without detailing her reasons for not pursuing another term.
In a recent interview with Atlanta News First, Bottoms stressed that she completed her term and did not leave early.
“I served the entirety of my first term as mayor,” she said. “I was asked to go to the Biden White House three times, and decided not to do it because I wanted to complete the term that I had been elected to serve.”
Her decision came after a demanding four years in office, dominated by the pandemic, a significant increase in violent crime, and protests over the police killings of George Floyd and Rayshard Brooks. Bottoms’ handling of the city’s social unrest received bipartisan praise, particularly her passionate appeal urging protesters to “go home.”
Both Democrats and Republicans have already capitalized on her perceived vulnerabilities ahead of Election Day, fearing reminders of her time in office might evoke memories of burning buildings and unrest.
Esteves, the former state senator, criticized Bottoms during a debate over the death of 8-year-old Secoriea Turner, who was killed near protests at the site where Atlanta police shot Rayshard Brooks.
“I did not allow gangs to take over blocks. We lived through 2020 together. It was the most trying time in recent history in our country,” Bottoms responded. “I made every decision that I thought was the best decision at that time. But you cannot have the death of a child — of any child — and not wonder what, if anything, you could have done differently.”
Republicans, despite their own contentious primary, have launched attacks on Bottoms’ record. An April ad by billionaire Rick Jackson accused her of abandoning Atlanta during critical moments.
“When the city needed her, she let Atlanta burn,” Jackson asserts over footage of protests in downtown Atlanta.
This early Republican strategy to critique Bottoms’ record is precisely what concerns some Democrats about her viability in the general election.
“This is a strategic choice. Sometimes when we make these choices in voting, some of the choices can be emotional, some of them can be related to personal ties,” said state Rep. Michelle Au, who is supporting Duncan in the gubernatorial primary.
“But really the most important thing — or even the only important thing — is: Can this Democrat win? Because we can get a Democrat out of the primary, and that’s all fine, but if they can’t win in November, it does not achieve my goal.”
