Georgia's Keisha Lance Bottoms navigates the challenges of Black women battling political barriers

ATLANTA (AP) — Keisha Lance Bottoms talks a lot about the policies she would pursue as Georgia governor. The Democratic nominee is less likely to talk about the history she would make by winning the job.

Never has a Black woman been elected governor in any state. The former Atlanta mayor and onetime White House adviser to Democratic President Joe Biden is trying to do it in a Deep South state where her lineage extends back to antebellum enslavement.

“I am at least a fifth-generation Georgian,” Bottoms, 56, says as she campaigns. “I say ‘at least’ because we can only trace our family back five generations to a plantation in Crawfordville.”

Bottoms rarely if ever mentions slavery, Jim Crow segregation or even race explicitly. But that story — hers, Georgia’s and the nation’s — shadows her battle with Republican nominee Rick Jackson.

The billionaire, a 72-year-old white man who grew up in Atlanta but now lives on a sprawling suburban estate, has hammered the former mayor as a failure, painting her four-year tenure as a crime-ridden decline. Other Republicans, up to Donald Trump, have joined in, with the president accusing Bottoms of ruining a once-great city.

“It’s a long-standing playbook to paint Atlanta as this big bad place,” Bottoms said, dismissing the Republican frame as ridiculous for a town that once hosted the Olympics and recently staged eight World Cup soccer matches.

One of her most recent ads pushes back by featuring clips of the news conference she held with the city’s law enforcement leaders during the peak of 2020 street protests of police violence in Atlanta and nationwide against Black men. “If you care about this city, then go home,” she said. “We are better than this.”

Bottoms will answer Trump and Republicans at a rally Wednesday headlined by Barack Obama, the first Black U.S. president.

Republican coalitions in most states, and certainly in Georgia, are overwhelmingly white and anchored in suburbs, smaller cities and small towns. Those are places where many voters look skeptically, even scornfully, upon big cities and the people who run them. But some of the rhetoric directed against Bottoms is steeped in the specter of race and gender in a state where all 83 governors since 1776 have been white men.

Jackson’s TV ads, a deluge funded by more than $200 million of his own money, feature footage of the demonstrations and violence in Atlanta in 2020, along with grainy images of Bottoms. The protests followed the police killing of Rayshard Brooks, an unarmed Black man, by a white Atlanta police officer.

The Republican campaign effort has not gone unnoticed among some Bottoms supporters, especially other Black women.

“It’s easy for people to attack Atlanta and Mayor Bottoms based on their own biases,” said retired educator Beverly Rice, a Bottoms supporter.

Bottoms’ bid marks the third consecutive time that Georgia Democrats have nominated a Black woman for governor. Stacey Abrams lost in 2018 and 2022 to Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, who is leaving office in 2027 after eight years due to term limits. Abrams came as close to winning a governor’s race as any Black woman before her.

In an interview, Abrams was reluctant to assign race and gender as the deciding factor in her defeats. But she said Black women running for governor face a higher bar because there is no example yet for voters who place a special emphasis on executive experience. Abrams, also an Atlantan, had served previously as state House minority leader, a role Republicans minimized as insufficient experience.

Abrams said that executive standard “does not apply equally across candidates” in politics. She said Bottoms “has a sound argument” because she has held the executive’s role. Before that, Bottoms was a City Council member, magistrate judge and prosecutor. That resume, Abrams and others said, is why Republicans have so aggressively criticized Bottoms’ experience.

“Bad mayors don’t make good governors,” Jackson has said over and over in the closing stretch of the campaign.

He has taken special notice of her decision not to run for a second term as mayor, instead joining Biden’s White House as a senior adviser – a move Bottoms said she deliberately put off to finish her four-year term. In Jackson’s telling, Bottoms “turned her back on Atlanta.”

Other conservatives have gone further than Jackson.

“Keisha Lance Bottoms let Atlanta burn,” top Jackson surrogate John King, a former Atlanta police officer and now state insurance commissioner, sometimes says at the candidate’s rallies.

That is a reference to protesters setting fire to a Wendy’s fast food restaurant close to where Brooks was killed. The reference carries an extra weight in a city whose symbol is a phoenix rising from the ashes — a symbol adopted because Union forces burned parts of a young Atlanta during the Civil War.

At a Trump rally last weekend outside Macon, a smaller city in middle Georgia, the president hammered away, too. Bottoms “destroyed Atlanta with her crime and filth and constant riots,” Trump said, echoing the kind of profane attacks he has sometimes leveled against many places with large or majority Black populations.

“I always viewed Atlanta as a great city,” he insisted. “It’s not considered that anymore.”

In a 2017 dispute with then-U.S. Rep. John Lewis, Trump called the civil rights icon’s district, which includes Delta Airlines’ and Coca-Cola’s world headquarters and the Georgia Institute of Technology, “crime-infested” and said it was “falling apart.”

Atlanta did see a crime spike during Bottoms’ tenure, but it was not an outlier alongside the COVID-19 pandemic surge across the country, according to federal statistics. After the pandemic waned, U.S. and Atlanta crime rates dropped significantly. Bottoms did sign an executive order blocking the Atlanta jail from holding federal immigration detainees.

Republicans have exaggerated her action on bail. Bottoms signed a city ordinance that eliminated cash bail for certain nonviolent crimes, intending to reduce the jail’s population and what she and other city officials deemed excessive punishment for low-grade offenses.

Her latest advertising retort follows a surge of fundraising that she did not have throughout Jackson’s summer advertising onslaught. “When a national crisis poured into Atlanta, Keisha Lance Bottoms stood up,” a voice-over says.

Besides her exhortation for people to leave the streets, the mother of four said, “Above everything else, I am a mother, so you are not going to out-concern me and out-care about where we are.”

Her aides see the ad — and the reality of how she handled the matter in real time — as depicting a political figure who is tough and empathetic, aware of public safety concerns and the realities for Black Americans.

But Bottoms’ advisers, and the candidate herself, also say they want Georgians to make their decisions on tangible policy distinctions, most notably her emphasis on addressing economic struggles and expanding Medicaid insurance eligibility — a move that would reach urban and rural populations across racial lines.

That is the point of the governor’s office, said Rice, the retired educator.

“I have 100% faith that she can win if people just judge her with their values,” she said. “I don’t look at her and see a ‘Black governor.’ I see a governor for all the people."

Democratic gubernatorial candidate Keisha Lance Bottoms speaks to the media after voting early in the Georgia Primary Election on Wednesday, Oct. 14, 2026, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)

Democratic gubernatorial candidate Keisha Lance Bottoms speaks during a rally ahead of the Georgia Primary Election on Saturday, Oct. 17, 2026, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)

President Donald Trump invites Georgia gubernatorial candidate Rick Jackson to speak at a campaign rally at Guardian Centers of Georgia, Saturday, Oct. 24, 2026, in Perry, Ga. (A5P Photo/Mike Stewart)

Democratic gubernatorial candidate Keisha Lance Bottoms arrives to vote early in the Georgia Primary Election on Wednesday, Oct. 14, 2026, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)

Democratic gubernatorial candidate Keisha Lance Bottoms speaks during a rally ahead of the Georgia Primary Election on Saturday, Oct. 17, 2026, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)

LONDON (AP) — U.K. Treasury chief John Healey used his first budget Wednesday to offer households and businesses some support with energy bills this winter in the face of what he termed “global economic storms.”

Healey, appointed chancellor of the exchequer in July when Andy Burnham became prime minister following the resignation of Keir Starmer, said the Iran war wasn't something that the Labour government wanted, but that it had to deal with the economic repercussions.

He said that his “choice in the budget today is to give families and businesses some breathing space now,” as the consequences of the Middle East conflict play out.

“For families, that means higher prices at the pump, higher energy bills and higher mortgages,” he said in his statement, one of the main dates of the parliamentary calendar. “For businesses, higher running costs and more expensive loans. And the impact is felt in the public finances too.”

Among the measures announced was a 100-pound ($133) one-off payment this winter for 20 million lower- and middle-income households, proportionately more of whom live in the electoral battlegrounds in northern England.

Other measures include the extension of a cut in the sales tax on electricity bills and the abolition of a charge paid on gas bills.

Energy bills are set to spike sharply over the winter as the Iran war and the ensuing bottlenecks in the Strait of Hormuz have squeezed global oil and gas supplies, pushing prices higher.

Healey said that banks, which have benefited from higher interest rates, will foot the bill with a doubling in the surcharge on their profits to 6% for 15 months from January.

“Amid global economic storms, I am looking to our banks to help fund breathing space for British families,” he said.

Outside of the energy price support, it was a relatively low-key budget.

He outlined tax cuts for retail, hospitality and leisure businesses, such as pubs and clubs, which will be paid for by higher levies on gaming machines.

He also committed more money to reduce homelessness and confirmed that the government has a “target date” of spending 3% of the country's annual gross domestic product on defense by 2030. Getting to 3% from the scheduled 2.7% by 2028 will cost billions, and Healey said that he would outline how that will be done when he unveils three-year spending plans next year.

For Healey, this is a touchstone issue as he quit as defense secretary earlier this year in protest at the lack of money being provided, a move that heaped pressure on Starmer.

He also announced 10 billion pounds ($13.3 billion) more of economic and military support for Ukraine.

“Today we send a clear message to Moscow: Britain will stand with Ukraine for as long as it takes,” he said.

Healey said that the U.K. economy has been more resilient and, according to the latest forecast from the independent Office for Budget Responsibility, will grow by 1.2% in 2026.

However, growth next year is expected to be much weaker than anticipated at 1% instead of 1.6% as a result of the Iran war's economic shock.

Before the global financial crisis of 2008, the U.K. economy's trend growth rate was around 2.5% and governments since then have struggled to get back to those sorts of levels — Britain's departure from the European Union, the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine have all contributed to this period of subpar growth.

Economists said that Healey's overall package has done little to alter that backdrop.

“None of what was announced today is likely to shift the dial on what is set to be a truly terrible decade for living standards,” said Ruth Curtice, chief executive at the Resolution Foundation.

The main impact of the Iran war has been on inflation, which was due to fall earlier this year to the Bank of England’s 2% target. Instead, it has risen to 3.5% and is expected to climb further over the next year or two. As a result, the Bank of England is expected to raise interest rates soon, which will further raise the costs to the government of servicing its debt.

Arguably, the main economic problem facing Healey is the country's debt mountain.

Even though the trajectory of the public finances was recently given a nod of approval from the International Monetary Fund, the U.K.’s debt has passed 3 trillion pounds ($4 trillion) for the first time ever, requiring 8% of government spending to service it.

Healey said that in forecasts provided by the independent Office for Budget Responsibility, the U.K. will spend 14 billion pounds ($18.6 billion) more on debt interest this year.

Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer John Healey poses on the doorstep of 11 Downing Street with the ministerial red box before heading to the House of Commons to deliver the budget statement in London, Wednesday, Oct. 28, 2026.(AP Photo/Thomas Krych)

Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer, John Healey, holds up the traditional red ministerial box outside No 11 Downing Street before departing to the House of Commons to deliver the first budget in London, England, Wednesday, Oct. 28, 2026. (Dylan Martinez/Pool Photo via AP)

Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer John Healey leaves 11 Downing Street with the ministerial red box heading to the House of Commons to deliver the budget statement in London, Wednesday, Oct. 28, 2026.(AP Photo/Thomas Krych)

Britain's Prime Minister Andy Burnham leaves 10 Downing Street to attend the weekly Prime Ministers' Questions session in parliamentin London, Wednesday, Oct. 28, 2026.(AP Photo/Alastair Grant)

Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer John Healey poses on the doorstep of 11 Downing Street with the ministerial red box before heading to the House of Commons to deliver the budget statement in London, Wednesday, Oct. 28, 2026.(AP Photo/Alastair Grant)

Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer John Healey poses on the doorstep of 11 Downing Street with the ministerial red box before heading to the House of Commons to deliver the budget statement in London, Wednesday, Oct. 28, 2026.(AP Photo/Thomas Krych)

Britain's Prime Minister Andy Burnham, right, and Chancellor of the Exchequer John Healey meet ahead of the UK budget at 11 Downing Street in London, Monday, Oct. 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Alberto Pezzali, Pool)

Britain's Prime Minister Andy Burnham, right, and Chancellor of the Exchequer John Healey meet ahead of the UK budget at 11 Downing Street in London, Monday, Oct. 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Alberto Pezzali, Pool)

Britain's Prime Minister Andy Burnham, right, and Chancellor of the Exchequer John Healey meet ahead of the UK budget at 11 Downing Street in London, Monday, Oct. 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Alberto Pezzali, Pool)