Black voters changed Georgia politics in 2020. Keisha Lance Bottoms needs them to show up again
TheGrio...
With Bottoms locked in a tight governor’s race, organizers say mobilizing Black Georgians — particularly younger voters — will be critical.
Keisha Lance Bottoms has a chance to do what no Black American has ever done in the state of Georgia as she campaigns to be the Peach State’s next governor. The former Atlanta mayor would be the first African-American governor of Georgia and the first Black woman elected governor in U.S. history.
But Bottoms is locked in a super competitive electoral battle against billionaire Rick Jackson. According to a recent poll by InsiderAdvantage, Jackson and Bottoms are locked in a dead heat (46.3% vs. 46.2%) in the gubernatorial contest. Bottoms is also being outspent by Jackson, who has self-funded his campaign by more than $100 million.
Considering the stakes, it is clear that Bottoms can’t win the governorship without solid turnout from Black voters this November.
“Black Georgians make up roughly one-third of the state’s eligible voters, and Black voters have always been central to Georgia,” says Tylik McMillan, National Director of Youth and College of the NAACP.
McMillan tells theGrio “the nation is watching” Georgia, where turnout of Black voters–mostly in the Atlanta metro area–made the difference in the 2020 election. Thanks to Black Georgians, Joe Biden became the first Democratic presidential candidate to win Georgia in 28 years and Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock became the first Democrats elected to the U.S. Senate in 20 years.
“Black voters were crucial,” said McMillan, who noted that the outsized role of Black voters came as a result of organizers spending years “building relationships, registering new voters, educating communities, and making those connections.”
However, the NAACP leader admits “it’s going to be a challenge” in this year’s elections in Georgia.
Despite strong Black voter showings in the 2020 election, Black voter turnout in Georgia has steadily dropped over the years, particularly among younger Black men, while white voter turnout has increased, according to data analyzed by the Brennan Center. Black voters make up more than 50% of Democratic voters in Georgia, making them a make or break for any Democratic candidate.
“I just hope that people don’t sit this one out,” Keisha Lance Bottoms told theGrio during an interview not long after winning the Democratic gubernatorial nomination this summer. “Every election matters, and a lot of people believe it doesn’t matter…Do you care about education? Do you care about access to healthcare? What is your thing? Do you care about good paying jobs? What’s your thing? Whatever your thing is, I guarantee you, going to vote can impact that.”
Additionally, Georgia has been ground zero for President Donald Trump and Republicans’ efforts to curb voting following their 2020 defeat. Republican state lawmakers passed legislation in 2021 restricting access to the ballot shortly after Democrats’ 2020 victories and Trump’s attempts to overturn the election. And since returning to office last year, Trump escalated his targeting of Georgia, and states across the country, by seeking to restrict mail-in voting through an executive order that is currently being challenged by 24 states and several civil rights groups, including the NAACP and Black Voters Matter.
Trump’s targeting of mail-in voting is significant in Georgia, where mail ballots in Atlanta carried the state of Georgia for Democrats in 2020.
McMillan said younger voters in particular rely on mail voting and lamented that the “uncertainty” around the ability to cast mail-in ballots creates “confusion” and can become a “barrier to participation already in a system that folks do not trust.”
“We want to make sure that everybody’s voice and vote can be heard and be counted,” said Khalil Thompson, a Democratic strategist and founder of Win with Black Men.
Thompson noted that Georgia is “the cradle of the civil rights movement,” adidng, “I think we’ve got an amazing candidate in Keisha Lance Bottoms.”
Considering the drop in turnout among younger Black male voters in Georgia, Democrats and organizers will have to effectively persaude them to show up to the polls and back Bottoms. Thompson tells theGrio, “I think Black male voters are persuasion voters that need to be courted, just like we would court any other voter.”
Ultimately, McMillian says that Georgia has already “demonstrated what happens when Black voters engage,” telling theGrio that he is “looking forward to see how Black Georgians and voters show up across the state.”
“I’m super excited about the possibilities of what Georgia can bring to help shift once again the paradigm that we’re seeing across the South with many attacks across different areas,” he said. “We need our voters to know the power that we have in states like Georgia and states across the South as well.”