America has a governor named Keisha. Keisha Lance Bottoms has won the race for governor of Georgia, defeating Republican Rick Jackson and flipping the office for Democrats, according to NBC News.

Her victory makes history several times over. Bottoms will become Georgia’s first woman governor, the state’s first Black governor and the first Black woman ever to serve as governor of any U.S. state.

It’s a milestone that has been a long time coming. In nearly 250 years of American history, no Black woman had ever held a governor’s office. Bottoms broke that barrier in the heart of the South, in a state where Stacey Abrams twice came up short against Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, who is term-limited.

For Bottoms, the road to the governor’s mansion runs through Atlanta. The Atlanta native served as a magistrate judge and spent eight years on the Atlanta City Council before becoming the city’s 60th mayor in 2018. She led the city through the COVID-19 pandemic and the racial justice protests of 2020, then chose not to seek a second term. She went on to serve as a senior adviser to President Joe Biden and director of the White House Office of Public Engagement.

She entered the governor’s race as the clear Democratic favorite and won the May primary outright, carrying nearly all of Georgia’s 159 counties and avoiding a runoff in a seven-candidate field.

The general election was a hard-fought battle. Jackson, a 72-year-old health care executive and first-time candidate, poured more than $200 million of his own money into the race. He attacked Bottoms’ record as mayor, arguing that “bad mayors don’t make good governors.” Bottoms accused Jackson of trying to “buy this election” and kept her focus on voters’ everyday concerns.

“I’m running to work on behalf of people like you,” she said during the campaign’s debate.

Now, she’ll get the chance to do just that. Her agenda includes expanding Medicaid eligibility, raising pay for teachers, firefighters and police officers, raising the minimum wage to $15, pausing data center development and blocking the expansion of Flock surveillance cameras.

A Florida A&M University graduate, wife and mother of four, Bottoms now steps into the national spotlight as one of the most significant political firsts of the 2026 election, and as proof that the doors once closed to Black women in American politics are finally opening.