Lance Bottoms to face Jackson-Jones runoff winner for governor's office

By Steve Schwartz | News editor

One of the big results from the May 19 primary election in Georgia was former Atlanta mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms winning the the Democratic nomination with 56 percent of the vote.

Lance Bottoms, daughter of R&B star Major Lance, was well over the 50-percent threshold to earn a spot in November’s general election. Thus, she was able to start her general election campaign that night while the top two Republican candidates will slug it out for another four weeks.

Burt Jones and Rick Jackson received 38.4 percent of the vote, and Jackson was not too far behind at 32.5 percent. Secretary of state Brad Raffensperger was a distant third at 15 percent, and that was not enough to get him into the runoff.

For the U.S. Senate seat, incumbent Democrat Jon Ossoff was unopposed. The top two Republicans at the top were Mike Collins and former Tennessee football coach Derek Dooley. Collins received 40 percent of the vote, while second-place Dooley took finished with 30 percent.

Republican incumbent Rick Allen easily won his primary for the 12th District for Georgia in the U.S. House of Representatives. On the Democratic side, Ceretta Smith will face Traci George in the runoff.

Meanwhile, the timeline for Georgia Senate Bill 189 makes the current voting method illegal on July 1.  SB 189 requires the removal of QR codes from ballots by July 1 of this year.

To comply with SB 189, equipment will need to be purchased for polling sites across the state, election officials will need to be trained and new ballots may need printing.

Georgia lawmakers have introduced a bill to move the deadline back to 2028. It passed the Georgia House of Representatives, but the Senate never took up the bill. Now the state faces the potential for a last-minute upheaval of the voting process.

In terms of party enthusiasm for this primary, Democrats drew 1.1 million votes, while Republican had 940,000. A total of 2.1 million votes were cast—just 28 percent of active voters.

The runoffs are scheduled for Tuesday, June 16.

Contact Steve Scwartz at stschwartz@augusta.edu.