Nearly three weeks after a pivotal runoff election, gubernatorial candidates Keisha Lance Bottoms and Rick Jackson are focusing on broadening their appeal to Georgia voters outside of their respective political tribes.

It’s been nearly 30 years since a Democrat was elected to serve in the governor’s mansion, and the state has never chosen a Black person to serve in the role. Bottoms is vying to become the first. 

Democratic strategist Fred Hicks said President Donald Trump’s unpopularity makes Bottoms the favorite to become the first Black woman governor in U.S. history. He said winning over Black voters is the key to victory for both Bottoms and Jackson, whose campaign seems focused on minimizing the Black voter turnout advantage Democrats in metro Atlanta typically enjoy. But he said he expects Jackson will be hobbled by embracing Trump, who has lost his appeal with Georgia voters of all backgrounds. 

“This is a wide-open race against the backdrop of an increasingly unpopular president who’s unpopular among members of his own party,” Hicks said. “Anything that looks or smells like a Trump-affiliated Republican, Black folks are running away from it.” 

Georgia is a swing state in which statewide office races like the one for governor have become less predictable in recent years. The general electorate that backed Trump in 2024 supported two Democratic candidates for the Public Service Commission last year. Voters concerned about the rising cost of living appeared to blame GOP leaders for their affordability woes.

Republicans have maintained control of the governor’s mansion since 2003. That could change in November, thanks to Republican voters souring on Trump over the economy, the war in Iran, and the Jeffrey Epstein files, all of which have fueled a surge in anti-Trump fervor among Democrats.

A recent Fox News poll shows Bottoms ahead of Jackson, 52% to 47%. 

Jackson is working to unite a fractured GOP electorate that became divided between him and Lt. Gov. Burt Jones during the primary season. 

Energizing one’s base is crucial during a general election, but so is swaying independent voters, who swung the GOP’s way in 2024 and backed Democrats last year. Broadening the tent requires candidates to try appealing to different audiences.

For Jackson, Georgia’s billionaire Republican nominee, that means reaching out to Black Georgians, a voting bloc that overwhelmingly supports Democrats. The founder of Jackson Healthcare spent last week meeting with Black business leaders at a barbershop in College Park.

His campaign said its strategy for improving affordability is tackling “government-driven costs.”

Jackson has promised to cut the state income tax in half during his first term and says freezing property taxes is one the ways he plans to reduce the cost of living. Landlords tend to raise rent prices to offset rising property taxes.

The high cost of rent and homeownership in Georgia has been a major burden for Black Georgians in recent years, which has helped make metro Atlanta the eviction capital of America.

Jackson also blames government-driven costs for higher power bills and more expensive groceries.

“He is committed to stopping government waste, ensuring every dollar is respected as the hard-earned property of Georgians,” spokesperson Garrison Douglas told Capital B Atlanta via email on Sunday.

Jackson’s campaign has noted the appeal of his origin story — of growing up in public housing and going on to become one of the richest people in Georgia — has with Black entrepreneurs.

“Opportunity should not have a ZIP code, and Rick Jackson is running for governor to deliver that reality for all 11 million Georgians,” Douglas said. “His own journey from growing up in Techwood Homes and navigating the foster care system to building successful businesses resonates deeply with hardworking Georgians across the state, including Black men and women, because it proves that where you start doesn’t have to determine where you finish.”

For Bottoms, the former mayor of Atlanta, widening the tent means courting voters living outside of Georgia’s most populous city. That includes rural voters, who tend to vote Republican.

Democratic operatives across the state have been critical in recent years of statewide office candidates spending too much focus on turning out voters in metro Atlanta.

Bottoms hosted a campaign event outside of the shuttered Northridge Medical Center in Commerce on June 18, the day after Jackson secured his runoff election victory over Jones.

Expanding Medicaid to improve healthcare access across Georgia, boosting affordable and workforce housing construction, and protecting voting rights are top priorities for Bottoms, as is opposing policies supported by Trump that critics have blamed for fueling the affordability crisis.

Her campaign noted in an email to Capital B Atlanta on Sunday that after entering the race in February, Jackson told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that he would be “Trump’s favorite governor.”

She and U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff joined forces in Savannah on June 27 for a rally where they both discussed the issue of affordability and their opponents’ close ties with the president, whose popularity has waned amid rising gas costs, an unpopular war in Iran and an ongoing inflation crisis.

“As more than 500,000 Georgians have lost healthcare insurance since January alone, it is the same Rick Jackson that says he wants to be Donald Trump’s favorite governor,” Bottoms told the crowd in Savannah. “It is the same Rick Jackson that says he’ll be Donald Trump, but with a Southern accent.”

Savannah resident Bernita Ritter, who attended Bottoms’ and Ossoff’s joint rally, said she believes Bottoms is doing a better job of broadening her appeal than Stacey Abrams did four years ago. She said Abrams’ was more focused on energizing young people, but Bottoms’ message is more appealing to older women and non-Black voters.

“The vibe is different,” Ritter told Capital B Atlanta during a phone interview on Monday. “She just brings a different kind of energy and it’s not like the energy based on fear mongering. … It’s more like a community vibe. We’re all in this together.”

One of Jackson’s main lines of attack against Bottoms has been blasting her for not running for reelection as mayor of Atlanta in 2020 after the city saw a COVID-19 pandemic-related rise in violent crime.

He has also attempted to paint Bottoms as a progressive radical whose politics are more closely aligned with left-wing politicians in dark-blue states like New York and Minnesota than purple states like Georgia.

Last week, Jackson attempted to tie her to progressive New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani after Mamdani called on New Yorkers to set their thermostats to 78 degrees during a sweltering heat wave to ease the strain millions of air conditioners have on the city’s power grid.

“If Mamdani does it in New York, you can bet Keisha would do it in Georgia,” Jackson said on his X account on July 2. “When I’m governor, we aren’t going to force Georgians to set their A/C to 78 in the middle of a heat wave.”

Bottoms’ rebuffed that critique by pointing to comments she made in December when asked if she sees herself as Georgia’s version of Mamdani.

“I see myself as Keisha who’s running for governor of Georgia,” she said.

Jackson’s wealth has given him a major fundraising advantage over Bottoms. He has donated more than $111 million to his own campaign so far, spending about $83 million on TV ads alone, according to an AJC analysis.

Bottoms’ campaign confirms it has raised about $2.2 million as of May 19. The campaign hasn’t publicly disclosed how much Bottoms has raised since then. She’s used the fundraising gap to boost her standing as the populist candidate taking on another allegedly out-of-touch billionaire.

As it stands, it appears the race may be Bottoms to lose, according to Hicks.

“This is an election that by the numbers Mayor Bottoms should win, but she cannot take it for granted,” he said.

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This story has been updated.

Chauncey Alcorn is Capital B Atlanta's state and local politics reporter.