ATLANTA — A previously missing election machine memory card in Seminole County has reversed the apparent outcome of a legislative race where early results showed a Republican incumbent losing his seat.
After election night, the state’s unofficial tally showed Rep. Gerald Greene, R-Cuthbert, trailing Democrat Harry James by fewer than 100 votes.
That changed on Friday, after the missing memory card was found and its contents uploaded.
Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger’s office said in a statement that Greene was now leading by 262 votes.
(On Friday night, the secretary of state’s website showed Greene with 10,193 votes to Democrat Harry James’ 9,932, a difference of 261 votes.)
Democrats appear to have flipped 13 other Republican seats. They appear to have lost two of their own but still appear on track to win 92 seats without Greene’s, enough for them to control the House for the first time in two decades. But the apparent reversal in Greene’s race means Democrats could have only a 1-vote cushion.
There are 180 seats in the House, and it takes a majority of them to pass legislation — a minimum of 91 votes.
Even if the reversal of Greene’s apparent loss does not affect control of the House, it affects who represents voters in the nine counties touched by Greene’s district in the southwest corner of the state.
“This oversight didn’t just affect the numbers — it changed who was leading an election,” Raffensperger said in a statement. “That is unacceptable, and we intend to find out exactly how it happened.”
The secretary of state’s office said the discrepancy was discovered when the count of the number of voters who checked in was compared against the number of votes, showing about 388 more voters than ballots. The discrepancy triggered a search for the missing memory card.
Another unresolved race could change the overall numbers.
Rep. Mike Cheokas, R-Americus, failed to win a majority in a three-way contest for his seat. With the independent eliminated, Cheokas must now face the second-highest vote-getter, Democrat Ethan Wolfe, in a runoff.
If Cheokas loses, Democrats could have a 2-vote cushion.
ATLANTA — In her first news conference after Election Day, Georgia’s governor-elect, Democrat Keisha Lance Bottoms, said she will be focus on the cost of living, access to healthcare and funding for public education — the affordability issues she said voters had elected her to address.
Expanding Medicaid will top her agenda, she said, noting that hundreds of thousands of Georgians lack health insurance due to the state’s approach to Medicaid and because of increasingly unaffordable premiums for coverage under the Affordable Care Act.
“The people made it loud and clear what they care about. They want leaders who are going to address those kitchen table issues that are impacting their daily lives,” Bottoms said at the Georgia Capitol Friday, flanked by members of her transition team.
Democrat Keisha Lance Bottoms, Georgia’s governor-elect, with supporters after her news conference in the state Capitol in Atlanta, on Friday, Nov. 6, 2026. (Ty Tagami/Capitol Beat)
She said Gov. Brian Kemp called her on election night and that they spoke the next day. She said the two-term Republican told her he would help her with her transition to the governor’s office. She added that the two have a “very cordial, friendly, personal relationship” despite their policy differences.
One such difference is Kemp’s approach to Medicaid, a work-based program called Pathways to Coverage. A federal Government Accountability Office report found high overhead and low enrollment. Recipients must work, volunteer or take classes 80 hours a month to qualify.
“I’ve talked about completely getting rid of the Georgia Pathways,” Bottoms said, adding that she wants a system that offers better access to affordable healthcare.
President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act from last year requires certain non-pregnant adult Medicaid enrollees to work, attend school or do community service.
Finding enough money to expand Medicaid could be difficult. Lawmakers and the governor have spent down much of Georgia’s once ample budget surplus, in part by sending money back to taxpayers through income tax rebates and rate cuts and through temporary suspensions of the motor fuel excise tax.
Kemp has raised the possibility of a special session this year to address the budget. Bottoms said she will scour the budget to find the necessary funding to expand Medicaid. Tax breaks for data centers — indeed, anything to do with data centers — will be on the table, she said.
Reflecting on the historic nature of her election win, she said it will be an honor to serve as the first Black woman elected governor in U.S. history.
“I don’t take that lightly. I believe that it is representative of just the best of who we all are, that in this place, the South, with our very rich history, that Georgia gets to break that barrier,” Bottoms said. “So, I’m grateful for it and as I’ve said repeatedly, I look forward to representing all of Georgia.”
ATLANTA — Women won big in Georgia on Election Day.
Eight women, all of them Black Democrats, expect to be sworn in to statewide office in January after defeating Republicans on Tuesday.
The unofficial tally by the Georgia secretary of state’s office shows a Black Democratic woman taking over that agency, along with the offices for governor and attorney general.
The results also show Black Democratic women flipping the state school superintendent’s office, which oversees education, and the agriculture, insurance and labor commissioner posts, and putting one at the table in a new Democratic majority controlling the commission that regulates utilities.
Democrats nearly flipped the state Senate, according to the tally, which shows at least two Democratic women unseating Republican men, including one who authored the state’s abortion ban when he was in the state House of Representatives.
Results also show at least three Democratic women unseating Republican men in the state House, helping their party end more than two decades of GOP rule there.
Rep. Carolyn Hugley, D-Columbus, who is the House minority leader, is among those in line to become speaker when a new Democratic majority convenes to select leadership.
Like the women who won statewide, Hugley is Black. She would be the first Black woman to serve as House speaker.
Rep. Carolyn Hugley, D-Columbus, minority leader of the Georgia House of Representatives, speaks at a lectern surrounded by Democratic colleagues during a news conference in the Georgia Capitol in Atlanta, on Wednesday, Nov 4, 2026. (Caroline Newbern/Capitol Beat)
Rep. Mary Margaret Oliver, D-Decatur, has served in both the state House and Senate at different times since the late 1980s. She watched with disappointment as one woman after another lost bids for statewide office, including Cathy Cox and Stacey Abrams for governor.
“I think it’s exciting. I think it’s overdue — way overdue,” Oliver said.
Some of the women who won did so in contests for open seats against white Republican men, including former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms for governor, state Rep. Tanya Miller, D-Atlanta, for attorney general, Penny Brown Reynolds for secretary of state and Shelia Edwards for the Public Service Commission.
Edwards’ lead in the unofficial election returns indicates that she would flip the five-member Public Service Commission to Democrats for the first time in three decades, consolidating Democratic gains from last year when the party dislodged two Republicans amid voter frustration over rising electricity bills.
Keisha Lance Bottoms waves to supporters during her election night watch party at the Atlanta Marriott Marquis, on Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2026. (Caroline Newbern/Capitol Beat)
Only three men won statewide on Tuesday, all of them Democrats who defeated male Republicans.
U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff fended off a Republican challenger, as did Public Service Commissioner Peter Hubbard, who kept the seat he won in a special election last year.
State Sen. Josh McLaurin, D-Sandy Springs, appears to have defeated state Sen. Greg Dolezal, R-Cumming, in the open contest for lieutenant governor, the official who presides over the Senate and is next in line to the governorship.
Sen. Josh McLaurin D-Sandy Springs speaks during a press conference at the Georgia Capitol in Atlanta, on Wednesday, Nov 4, 2026. McLaurin is the apparent winner of the election for lieutenant governor. (Caroline Newbern/Capitol Beat)
Three women won congressional races in Democrat-learning territory, although several Democratic women failed to unseat Republican men in GOP-leaning districts.
Some voters said they backed Democrats because of frustration with rising prices and opposition to the policies of President Donald Trump.
“I went blue all the way because I believe in democracy,” said James Leggat, a former Republican who voted at Buford City Hall. “I’m not really crazy about fascism,” he said, explaining why he voted for every Democrat on his ballot.
He said he felt Republican messaging was “straight out of ‘Mein Kampf,'” citing Project 2025, a policy blueprint for a conservative administration drafted by the Heritage Foundation and former Trump administration officials.
The National Women’s Law Center describes the 900-plus-page handbook as “a hierarchal, gendered, patriarchal vision of society” that seeks to roll back gender equality and women’s rights.
Christine Ball said gender influenced some of her choices, though not in the governor’s race. Ball, who voted at Buford City Hall, said she picked Republican businessman Rick Jackson because she did not like how Bottoms had led Atlanta City Hall as mayor.
But unlike Leggat, Ball did not pick strictly along party lines. She said she voted to keep Ossoff in his U.S. Senate seat because she did not like his Republican challenger, U.S. Rep. Mike Collins. And she chose Miller for attorney general because, unlike her Republican opponent, Miller had experience as a criminal prosecutor.
Ball said she voted for down-ballot Republican incumbents but backed the Democrat in the open race for secretary of state.
Ball, a children’s mental health therapist, said she voted for Penny Brown Reynolds instead of state Rep. Tim Fleming, R-Covington, because she felt a woman would be more likely to feel urgency in approving licenses for professionals like her.
“I definitely wanted to see a female secretary of state,” Ball said.
This is who won down-ballot races, according to unofficial election results from the Georgia secretary of state’s office.
Four Black Democratic women appear to have defeated the Republican incumbents leading four state agencies:
Katherine Juhan-Arnold against Agriculture Commissioner Tyler Harper,
Keisha Sean Waites against Insurance Commissioner John King,
Lydia Powell against state School Superintendent Richard Woods, who leads the Department of Education, and
Nikki Porcher against Labor Commissioner Bárbara Rivera Holmes, who was appointed to the post last year and was the only female statewide incumbent on the ballot.
Three Black Democratic women appear to have won their congressional elections in Democratic-leaning territory:
U.S. Rep. Nikema Williams appears to have defended her seat against a male Republican challenger in Clayton, DeKalb and Fulton counties,
U.S. Rep. Lucy McBath appears to have kept her seat against a male Republican challenger in a district that spans Cobb, Douglas, Fayette and Fulton counties, and
state Rep. Jasmine Clark, D-Lilburn, appears to have won an open U.S. House seat by defeating a male Republican in another Democratic-leaning district that spans six counties in east and south metro Atlanta.
At least three Democratic women appear to have unseated Republican men in the state House of Representatives, helping to flip the chamber to Democrats:
Danielle Bell against Rep. Don Parsons, R-Marietta,
Michelle Kang against Rep. Matt Reeves, R-Duluth, and
Cynthia Starke-Jones against Rep. Joseph Gullett, R-Dallas.
At least two Democratic women appear to have helped bring the state Senate to within two seats of Democratic control by defeating male Republican incumbents:
Laura Murvartian against Sen. Shawn Still, R-Suwanee, and
Darcy Castro against Sen. Ed Setzler, R-Acworth, who was a member of the state House when he authored the law that bans most abortions after fetal cardiac activity can be detected, usually around six weeks of pregnancy.
ATLANTA — Georgia voters turned so sharply in a new direction Tuesday that the results surprised even some winners and set several historical firsts.
Keisha Lance Bottoms is the first Black woman elected governor in U.S. history, but Georgia could also see a Black woman leading the state House.
Voters put a Democrat in every statewide elected office, from attorney general to agriculture commissioner, ousting four Republican incumbents in the process.
They also appeared to have handed the state House to Democrats while putting a Democrat in the presiding seat of the Senate — and second in line of succession to the governor.
State Sen. Josh McLaurin, D-Sandy Springs, defeated state Sen. Greg Dolezal, R-Cumming, for the open lieutenant governor’s seat by more than 10 percentage points, according to the unofficial tally by the Georgia secretary of state’s office.
“What we saw was not just a blue wave. It was not just a blue tsunami. It was the complete and utter collapse of Donald Trump’s MAGA coalition,” McLaurin said at the state Capitol Wednesday. “What it means is that voters are tired of the culture war. They’re tired of the distractions. I think the one word I heard the most for 18 months on the campaign trail was ‘exhausted.'”
Sen. Josh McLaurin, D-Sandy Springs, speaks during a press conference at the Georgia Capitol in Atlanta, on Wednesday, Nov 4, 2026. McLaurin won the election for lieutenant governor. (Caroline Newbern/Capitol Beat)
During legislative sessions, Dolezal focused on immigration, transgender athletes and other issues on the Trump agenda. In his campaign for lieutenant governor, Dolezal shifted to Islam, echoing fears voiced in Texas, where some Republicans had contended that parts of the state were at risk of falling under Islamic legal influence.
“I’m fighting to ban Sharia law,” Dolezal said during his campaign.
Voters did not buy what he was selling.
“Last night, we saw what happens when you traffic in division,” said Bentley Hudgins, the first openly transgender person elected to the Georgia General Assembly.
The incoming House member from DeKalb County defeated a Republican challenger, an outcome that was no surprise in that Democratic stronghold. But Hudgins won by more than 80 percentage points, according to the unofficial tally, taking nearly 28,000 votes to the Republican nominee’s more than 2,000.
Hudgins first came to the state Capitol a few years ago to advocate against legislation of the kind that Dolezal and his allies were promoting.
Hudgins would like to see legislation for LGBTQ+ people, such as protections for same-sex couples who want to adopt a child. But the incoming lawmaker has other priorities.
“We have kitchen tables too. And we want to eat groceries that we know won’t make us sick, that we can afford,” Hudgins said Wednesday. “We want to sit at a kitchen table in a house that we’re not sweating whether we can pay the rent or the mortgage.”
Democrats in the General Assembly have concluded that voters gave them a mandate on affordability, and said they intend to deliver, in part by working with like-minded Republicans.
Democratic leaders of the House expect to take control when new members are sworn in, in January, but Republicans appear to have kept control of the Senate by the slimmest of margins.
The performance by Democratic House candidates had Rep. Carolyn Hugley, D-Columbus, the minority leader, considering a bid to replace House Speaker Jon Burns, R-Newington.
If her prospective Democratic majority chooses her, she would become the first Black woman to lead the House, after serving 34 years in that chamber.
“So, it will be a historical moment,” she said Wednesday. “I only wish my parents were still alive.”
Hugley said she did not quite believe what was happening Tuesday night.
“I’ve been at these elections a lot of times when we went home crying, and so it was hard for me to believe when the results came in as early as they did. I’m like, ‘okay, is that really real?’ And then they kept coming, kept coming, kept coming.”
Like other leading Democrats, Hugley said she would focus her chamber on the cost of living.
“What Georgia citizens have told us is affordability is the No. 1 issue. And so you can expect the issues that we put forth in this first legislative session are going to be focused on meeting that challenge of affordability,” she said.
Rep. Carolyn Hugley, D-Columbus, minority leader of the Georgia House of Representations, talks with reporters at the Capitol in Atlanta, on Wednesday, Nov 4, 2026. (Caroline Newbern/Capitol Beat)
Bottoms campaigned on expanding access to Medicaid as most other states have done. It is a top goal for McLaurin.
Democrats will need help from Republicans to pass legislation, though.
McLaurin said Republicans appeared to have kept 29 Senate seats, which is a majority of the 56-member chamber with no wiggle room. A majority is needed to pass legislation.
Gov. Brian Kemp has opposed Medicaid expansion, and so have Republican leaders in the General Assembly. Few Republican lawmakers have publicly supported Medicaid expansion, but McLaurin said he knows several who have privately told him they would vote for it.
Rural Republicans have watched as hospitals in their areas have closed because of budget cuts, he said.
McLaurin could end up as a figurehead.
Twice since Republicans took control of the Senate in 2003, they have stripped power from the lieutenant governor, the first time when the occupant was a Democrat and the second time when he was a Republican.
“There’s quite a bit of precedent for that,” said Charles Bullock, a longtime political science professor at the University of Georgia.
Bullock said he would not be surprised if they did it again with McLaurin.
Republicans took control of the governor’s office and the Senate from Democrats in 2003, but they did not take the House until 2005.
Aside from that two-year period, control of the two chambers has not been split between the parties since at least the 1870s, according to Bullock.
But he said bipartisanship is possible under Georgia’s Gold Dome, where heels aren’t dug in quite so deeply as in Congress. He chalks it up to something as mundane as it is profound: seating charts.
In Congress, the two parties sit on opposite sides of a center aisle.
In Georgia, lawmakers are all jumbled together regardless of party. Relationships bloom across political divides.
“You get to talk to the person beside you about whatever the latest sporting event was or congratulate them because they have a new child or grandchild or whatever else,” Bullock said. “So you get to know them as individuals and therefore you can disagree without being disagreeable. So, this makes it easier, I think, to get things done.”
Kemp signaled a possible new direction for his party in a statement Wednesday.
He had been rumored to be considering calling lawmakers back to the Capitol for another special session this year, while Republicans were still in control, after GOP leaders declined to redraw maps in a June special session. The rumored goal was legislative redistricting.
But Kemp said in his statement that he would not call a special session for redistricting or “to curtail executive branch powers.”
The term-limited governor also posted a message on X for his fellow partisans.
“Republicans now have the opportunity, and responsibility, to heed the will of voters and learn from last night’s results,” Kemp’s post said. “I firmly believe the conservative principles of our party lead to greater freedom, security, and prosperity for all Americans — and it’s time we get back to those principles in the months and years to come.”
ATLANTA — Georgia voters made history Tuesday, electing for the first time in 238 years of statehood a woman — and a Black person — as governor.
In January, when she is sworn into office, Democrat Keisha Lance Bottoms, the former mayor of Atlanta, will also become the first Black woman governor of any state in the 250-year history of the nation.
Bottoms declared victory Tuesday night at 10:41 p.m.
“Thank you, Georgia. I am honored to be your 84th governor,” she said at her victory party in an Atlanta Marriott Marquis ballroom.
She claimed victory with a lead of nearly 10 percentage points over Republican Rick Jackson, with more than 4 million votes counted, according to unofficial results from the Georgia secretary of state’s office.
Keisha Lance Bottoms waves to the crowd during her election night watch party at the Atlanta Marriott Marquis on Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2026. (Caroline Newbern/Capitol Beat)
Bottoms rode a wave of frustration over the cost of living, with Republicans in control of the governor’s office and the legislature, not to mention the White House and Congress.
The issue was so potent that Bottoms took a page from the GOP playbook, campaigning on cuts to some taxes, though her pitch was not as expansive as her opponent’s.
Jackson had pledged to cut the state income tax in half and eliminate the state tax on energy for residential and small-business customers.
He also pledged to suspend the gasoline tax during price spikes. Bottoms proposed permanently lowering it by about a nickel, to 28 cents a gallon from 33.3 cents. She also said she wanted to eliminate the tax on auto insurance premiums and encourage local governments to eliminate their sales tax on groceries.
Bottoms and Jackson differed sharply on other issues.
She campaigned on expanding Medicaid, as most other states have done. Jackson said, without elaborating, that he would build on Gov. Brian Kemp’s template for Medicaid with “intelligent” expansion.
And she attacked him on abortion, saying she would push lawmakers to undo the state’s current ban after fetal cardiac activity is detected, typically six weeks into pregnancy.
Jackson said he supported the law.
One of the biggest distinctions between them was his wealth.
This contest for governor was among the most expensive in the country, with the two candidates’ campaigns collecting over $150 million during the past three months alone.
Most of that was on Jackson’s side, from his own pockets.
The billionaire founder of a healthcare staffing company spent more than $200 million of his own money on his campaigns, putting more than $100 million into his Republican primary and runoff races then pouring more than $90 million more into his contest with Bottoms in the last three months alone.
Bottoms had highlighted his wealth during her campaign and said in her victory speech that her supporters had “shown that no amount of money will ever never ever ever overcome the power of the people.” She added that her campaign was “about everyday hard-working people who want to be able to afford to put food on the table.”
Bottoms’ win ends a 24-year drought for Democrats, who have watched one Republican after another occupy the governor’s mansion since Democratic incumbent Roy Barnes lost his reelection bid to Republican Sonny Perdue in 2002.
Rick Jackson speaks with supporters at his watch party after he conceded the gubernatorial race to Keisha Lance Bottoms at the Weston Perimeter Hotel in Sandy Springs. (Anthony Stalcup for the Marietta Daily Journal)
Georgia governors enjoy considerable power, including the authority to veto individual items in the budget passed by state lawmakers.
But to accomplish her goals, she will need collaboration from a General Assembly that has been similarly dominated by Republicans. The GOP has controlled the state Senate since 2003 and the state House since 2005.
That could change as votes in legislative races are counted and winners called.
Jackson tried to undermine confidence in her leadership skills, attacking her management of protests and riots during her 2018-2022 term as Atlanta mayor, which included the COVID-19 pandemic. He also attacked her for declining to run for a second term, saying she had chosen to run away rather than to stand and fight when the challenges were great.
But Bottoms returned to a bigger fight this year and will take control of the nation’s eighth-largest state by population when she is inaugurated in January.
On Tuesday night, she touched on the historic nature of her win, mentioning the late civil rights leader and U.S. Rep. John Lewis, an aunt who staged sit-ins at the Atlanta University Center and a great-great-grandmother who was born 20 years before the United States ended slavery.
“I know I am standing on shoulders made of steel,” Bottoms said.
