Former Atlanta mayor plans run for Georgia governor
Former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms (D) is preparing to launch a 2026 gubernatorial bid in Georgia, according to a Friday report from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Bottoms served as a city council member and spent three years in the White House as a senior adviser during the Biden administration. She was also a close confidante of former Vice President Kamala Harris throughout her 2024 presidential campaign.
Reports of Bottoms's candidacy come days after Rep. Lucy McBath (D-Ga.) announced she would pause her exploratory bid for Georgia governor to focus on her husband’s ongoing cancer battle.
Since Trump's return to Washington, Bottoms has pledged to lean in to progressive politics, launching the Georgia Promise PAC to support her candidacy and hired a string of staffers ahead of her formal announcement to become the state’s leader.
“Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. reminded us that there is a ‘fierce urgency of now,’” Bottoms told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “For the people of Georgia, that includes having leaders who aren’t blindly following Trump off a moral and economic cliff but focused on the pressing needs in our communities.”
Bottoms would face off against state Attorney General Chris Carr (R), who entered the race to replace term-limited Gov. Brian Kemp (R-Ga.) in November 2026.
Republican state Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, state Sen. Jason Esteves (D), former DeKalb County Chief Executive Michael Thurmond and former Democratic gubernatorial nominee Jason Carter are also likely to vie for the top post in the Peach State.
"I was mayor when Trump was president and I can tell you all, it was a challenge every single day as we experienced the pandemic in 2020, and the unrest in the summer of 2020. Donald Trump's hand was in the middle of much of the chaos that we were experiencing in our cities," Bottoms said at an October campaign rally for Harris.
Throughout 2020, Bottoms often clashed with Kemp over COVID-19 policies during the height of protests against police brutality in communities of color.
Kemp sued her for enforcing a mask mandate in Atlanta and requested an emergency injunction to prevent her from making statements to the press about the measure.