Georgia elects the nation's first Black female governor

Key Points:

• Keisha Lance Bottoms has been elected as Georgia's governor, becoming the first Black female governor in the U.S. and the first Democratic governor in Georgia in over 20 years, according to the Associated Press.
• Bottoms defeated Republican Rick Jackson, a billionaire healthcare executive endorsed by former President Trump, in a state that has shifted from solidly Republican to a swing state with Democratic senators but still has a Republican-controlled legislature.
• Her campaign focused on expanding Medicaid, addressing high prices by proposing local sales tax eliminations on groceries, and supporting a moratorium on new data center construction amid Georgia's rapid growth in that sector.
• Bottoms previously served as Atlanta's mayor from 2018 to 2022, navigating the city through the COVID-19 pandemic and social unrest, and later worked as an adviser in the Biden administration; her opponent criticized her mayoral record during the campaign.
• She received endorsements from prominent Democrats including Joe Biden, Barack Obama, and Senator Jon Ossoff, while Jackson distanced himself from Trump during the general election despite Trump's initial endorsement.