Keisha Lance Bottoms, adoptive mom, wins historic Georgia governor race

• Keisha Lance Bottoms was elected Georgia's governor, becoming the first Black female governor in the nation's history.
• Both Bottoms, an adoptive mother, and her opponent, a former foster youth, have personal connections to the child welfare system.
• As governor, Bottoms will oversee Georgia's Division of Family and Children Services, which faces financial and operational challenges.

This story was originally published by The Imprint, a national nonprofit news outlet covering child welfare and youth justice. Sign up for The Imprint’s free newsletters here.

One of the country’s most hotly contested races came to a momentous close Tuesday night when Keisha Lance Bottoms made history after being elected Georgia’s first Black governor and the nation’s first-ever Black female governor.

Bottoms, a Democrat and former mayor, captured 54% of the vote, defeating health care industry leader Rick Jackson, her Republican opponent. In a rarity among political races, both candidates have a personal relationship to the child welfare system, Jackson as a former foster youth and Bottoms as a former guardian ad litem and attorney representing children in juvenile court — as well as being an adoptive parent.

The current governor, Republican Brian Kemp, is term-limited.

During her victory speech, Bottoms acknowledged her family’s slavery roots dating back to a Crawfordville plantation, which she said “produced the Confederacy’s vice president,” but now “your next governor.”

“No matter what community we come from, Georgia is not defined by one moment in time or one person,” Bottoms said during her speech. “It’s been defined by us all, and I will be a governor for everyone in this state.”

A historic win with deep ties to child welfare

Child welfare emerged as a unique connection between the two gubernatorial candidates during the race. Bottoms adopted all four of her children, while Jackson cycled through five foster homes and a now-shuttered “orphan’s home” beginning at age 13.

Melissa Carter, director of Emory University’s Barton Child Law and Policy Center, called Bottoms’ victory “historic,” and said “Georgia needs equally consequential change” to repair its child welfare system.

“The state faces serious financial and operational challenges that demand strong, competent leadership, fiscal transparency and an unwavering commitment to better outcomes,” she said. “Governor-elect Bottoms brings valuable experience and a deeply personal understanding of what is at stake. That combination provides a powerful foundation for the urgency, determination and resolve needed to meet this moment for Georgia’s children and families.”

Georgia’s troubled foster care system awaits a new governor

As governor, Bottoms will oversee Georgia’s Division of Family and Children Services, an agency responsible for 11,000 foster children and an annual budget of roughly $1.6 billion. An $86 million projected budget shortfall last year prompted drastic cost-cutting measures. Recently, the agency became embroiled in additional controversy after it was reported that it spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on surveillance equipment to find missing foster kids, agency emails indicated.

Bottoms, 56, recently told The Imprint that her past work as a guardian ad litem and attorney representing children in Atlanta’s juvenile court helped her understand the struggles of parents battling challenges like poverty and substance use. She called for improved pay, training and recruitment efforts for child welfare caseworkers, as well as adoption and post-adoption support services.  

During her victory speech, Bottoms said she assured Jackson of her commitment to foster care. 

“I thanked him for a hardfought race, and we agreed together that we would continue to support foster children across this state,” she said. 

From Atlanta mayor to Georgia governor

Bottoms, whose campaign policy proposals included universal pre-K, Medicaid expansion and affordable housing development, served as Atlanta’s 60th mayor from 2018 to 2022. During her term, she steered the city through the COVID-19 public health crisis and civil unrest that followed the killings of George Floyd and other Black Americans by police. 

She is the first mayor in Atlanta’s history to have served in all three branches of city government as a magistrate judge, city councilmember and mayor. She later worked for President Joe Biden’s administration as a senior advisor.

Her gubernatorial run was dogged by criticism, including from Jackson, for pulling away from Georgia politics after only one mayoral term. She later characterized the decision as one made in consideration of her family and personal health.

“I always said that was a comma, not a period,” Bottoms said on a radio show last September. “I knew that I needed to step out at that moment. But I always said, you know, Georgia would always be in my heart and that one day I may step back in.”

Jackson brought his own foster care story to the race

To secure her win, Bottoms also had to overcome a staggering campaign spending blitz launched by her opponent, a billionaire businessman who quickly established himself as a formidable, dark horse candidate. Jackson, founder of one of the largest healthcare staffing companies in the country, largely self-funded his campaign with more than $200 million.

Promising to be just like “Trump but with a Southern tone” and to run the state like his businesses, Jackson’s MAGA-aligned platform centered around tax cuts, immigration, ending diversity initiatives and “gender ideology,” and new work requirements for social programs. Regarding foster care, he had called for a streamlined permanency process for foster youth and improved access to mental health services. 

Jackson, 72, also established a Christian foster care agency in Georgia, Faith Bridge, and orchestrated a state tax credit initiative designed to direct tax dollars to agencies supporting aging-out youth. 

A Jackson victory would have been historic in its own right, said John Myers, a child welfare historian and visiting law professor at the University of California, San Francisco. Myers said he believes Jackson would have been the first U.S. governor who was a foster child of the modern child welfare system.

The most recent governor with a child welfare connection that Myers is aware of is John Green Brady, Alaska’s governor from 1897 to 1906 who was taken by orphan train. Orphan trains were an earlier iteration of foster care where thousands of children were transported out of crowded Eastern cities to new homes in rural areas. 

Jackson “certainly wouldn’t have been the first one who couldn’t live at home with mom and dad,” Myers said. “But that doesn’t undermine the uniqueness of what Jackson has done. The foster care system our government has designed yields many success stories, but very few rise to the level he has aspired to.”

Bottoms’ victory comes amid a night of political firsts

Tuesday’s election was defined by other firsts. Georgia joined Florida, Nevada and Wisconsin in electing their first-ever Black governors. 

The nation also elected its first openly gay male senator, first Muslim senator, first Native American female governor, first Latina governor of Texas, first female governor of Minnesota and first Latino governor of California.

These wins were part of a stunning “blue tsunami” that swept Republican strongholds from coast to coast. Democrats won control of both chambers of Congress, flipping more than two dozen house districts and at least seven senate seats. In Georgia, voters elected Democrats to every statewide office on the ballot.

In October, Bottoms won the endorsement of former president Barack Obama, who, along with former Vice President Kamala Harris, campaigned for her and Sen. Jon Ossoff as election day neared. Ossoff, who co-led a massive probe into Georgia’s foster care system in 2023, also won his reelection bid Tuesday.