Keisha Lance Bottoms surprised by lopsided win in Georgia governor’s race: “I thought it could be much closer”

November 4, 2026 / 9:35 AM EST / CBS News

When Keisha Lance Bottoms takes over the Georgia governor's office in January, she'll be the first Black woman in the U.S. to ever hold the office. But you might've found out sooner than she did.

Bottoms told "CBS Mornings" co-host Gayle King she was trying to tune out the results and work on her speech when her husband had to physically draw her attention to the TV screen.

"I had put in my AirPods to work on my speech, and my husband was on the sofa near me, laying near me, and he kicked me," said Bottoms, the former mayor of Atlanta. "I went like, 'What?' He said, 'They called it.' And I said, 'Called what?' And so that's how I knew. Then my son Langston ran in the room and jumped on top of me almost."

The race was called fairly quickly. Georgia incumbent Sen. Jon Ossoff was projected to win the race not long after polls closed at 7 p.m. ET, one of the first in the country. CBS News projected Bottoms' race by 9:30 p.m.

With 99% of the vote in Wednesday morning, Bottoms was beating Republican…

Original source: https://www.cbsnews.com/world/