Many Americans who live in suburbs and rural areas don’t like the big, left-leaning metropolitan areas nearby. And while it’s hard to say exactly how much that anti-urban resentment is tied to race, we know that big cities often have high percentages of people of color, particularly African Americans. So in red and purple states, the Democratic Party has in the past sometimes shied away from nominating Black candidates for statewide offices, especially politicians closely identified with their states’ urban areas.
But because of how American politics has changed over the last two decades, as well as the specific politics of 2026, former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms and Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley have very strong chances of winning in November. If they triumph, they will become the fourth and fifth Black Americans elected governor in U.S. history. Their victories would be the latest illustration of how American politics has fundamentally changed in the Trump era—creating many new obstacles to greater racial progress but also some fresh opportunities.
Since the Voting Rights Act and other changes spurred by the civil rights movement, hundreds of African Americans have been elected to the office of mayor or U.S. representative. But very, very few Black politicians have become senator or governor. Most of that small group, such as Barack Obama, Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, and Wes Moore, were elected in blue states. Red states in the South have big Black populations, but their white residents are overwhelmingly Republican and rarely elect Democrats of any race. That provides an opening to the few Black Republican politicians, such as Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina and Representative Byron Donalds of Florida, who could become the Sunshine State’s first Black governor in November.
Purple states are complicated. Sometimes Black candidates, such as Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams and Wisconsin Senate hopeful Mandela Barnes in 2022, win the Democratic nomination but lose the general election. Other times Black candidates are either discouraged to run statewide by party operatives who suggest that they can’t win the general election, or are defeated by white opponents in part because Democratic voters think those white candidates are more viable. While party officials never state this explicitly, their ideal politician in a purple state has traditionally been someone like ex-governor and current North Carolina Senate candidate Roy Cooper: white, male, Christian, center-left, and who lives outside of the state’s urban areas or has at least kept their drawl. They believe those candidates can win by wooing some voters who would otherwise back GOP politicians.
Bottoms and Crowley aren’t in this mold. Bottoms was born in Atlanta and attended the historically Black college Florida A&M. She served on the Atlanta City Council for two terms and then as mayor from 2018 to 2022. The city is 46 percent Black, while the state of Georgia overall is 32 percent. Crowley was born in Milwaukee and has spent almost his entire adult life there. Milwaukee County, which Crowley has led since 2020, is 27 percent Black; the state overall is just 7 percent.
So how did Democrats end up with Bottoms and Crowley as their nominees in Georgia and Wisconsin? First and probably most importantly, there has been a dramatic increase in partisan voting over the last two decades. Americans increasingly back the same party, no matter the individual candidates. So it’s harder to claim that a white candidate, a male one, a moderate, a Christian, or one with any other attribute traditionally considered advantageous will do significantly better in a general election than another candidate from that same party.
Georgia powerfully illustrated this in 2020. Joe Biden won there six years ago, as had past white male Christian center-left candidates such as Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter. But essentially everyone who voted for Biden in Georgia also backed Jon Ossoff, who is Jewish and born in Atlanta, and Raphael Warnock, who is Black and leads one of the city’s most prominent Black churches. Both had fairly progressive records. It’s hard to imagine either of them being elected U.S. senators from Georgia in less partisan eras.
So when Bottoms opted to run, there wasn’t a drumbeat of people claiming that she couldn’t win the general election because she’s a Black woman from Atlanta. She certainly has a chance in a state that just elected Ossoff and Warnock. Barnes lost by one point in 2022. The state keeps reelecting Tammy Baldwin, who is a gay progressive woman. So of course Crowley can win.
Secondly, there’s a big shift happening within the Democratic Party over the last decade that likely helps Bottoms and Crowley. African American politicians have traditionally been on the left end of the Democratic Party. That’s because they often emerge from the Black community, which pushes for an active role for the government to make up for past racism and current inequalities in America. But Democratic Party operatives don’t want politicians linked with the party’s left running in swing states, because they don’t think those pols can win. (That’s not the reality. Often progressive candidates win in swing states.) The Democratic Party establishment, looking for the most “electable” candidate in its view, was rarely landing on a Black one in a swing state.
But the rise of the Democratic Socialists of America, the presidential campaigns of Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, and other developments in Democratic politics have created a new left flank in the party that is not defined by Black people or issues specifically related to African Americans. So Bottoms positioned herself as a center-left candidate during the primary, using the term “moderate” to describe her politics. She emphasized her experience as mayor and a senior White House aide to Biden and ran on issues like expanding Medicaid, not the aggressive populism of progressives. Biden endorsed her during the primary, further solidifying her center-left branding.
Crowley explicitly ran a primary campaign focused on electability, hinting that he could appeal to right-leaning voters better than his rivals. That was highly unusual. Black candidates don’t usually make that argument because voters won’t buy it. But in this case, Crowley’s main opponent was Francesca Hong, an Asian American woman who is a member of DSA and had made numerous controversial remarks. Crowley could credibly run as the moderate alternative to Hong. He did and won.
“Crowley has made clear that he is not afraid to cut deals with Republicans as needed to get things done for his county,” University of Wisconsin political scientist Barry Burden told me.
Crowley and Bottoms now have to win the general election. And the recent losses of Abrams, Barnes, and numerous non-Black Democrats in Georgia and Wisconsin show that won’t be easy. But they have an asset: Trump’s massive unpopularity. Most elections since the start of 2025 have featured high Democratic turnout, somewhat lower Republican turnout, and swing voters backing Democrats. That includes the 2025 state Supreme Court race in Wisconsin, where the Democratic Party–backed candidate won. The most likely scenario for Bottoms and Crowley is that voters treat them like the other Democrats on the ballot—so they win because 2026 is a good year for Democrats.
But there are two less optimistic scenarios. First, anti-Black and anti-urban sentiment could defeat them. One of the books that was widely cited after the 2016 election to explain Trump’s stunning victory and strength with white rural and non-college-educated voters was Kathy Cramer’s Politics of Resentment. Cramer is a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and her book is grounded in extensive interviews with rural Wisconsin residents who describe their hatred of Madison and Milwaukee. Crowley must win some rural voters who hate his hometown so much that there have been books written about that animosity. That won’t be simple.
Bottoms was the mayor of Atlanta during the protests after the killing of George Floyd. Fox News and other conservative media falsely portrayed Atlanta and other cities as essentially being burned to the ground. Bottoms probably symbolizes what people outside of the city hate about Atlanta more than Ossoff or Warnock. So that makes her particularly vulnerable to attacks from Rick Jackson, the Republican nominee for governor, that are centered on race and Atlanta.
“To some, Atlanta represents all that’s wrong with Georgia. And Jackson is trying to make Bottoms—and her record in office over a term as mayor—an avatar of the big-city politics gone wrong,” The Atlanta Journal-Constitution chief political reporter Greg Bluestein told me.
Secondly, there’s a downside to Crowley and Bottoms being experienced, moderate politicians. We’re in an anti-incumbent, antiestablishment moment in American politics where voters are deeply frustrated with traditional politics and politicians. Crowley and Bottoms are ill suited to tap into those sentiments. While basically everyone in politics, including Crowley’s Republican opponent, Tom Tiffany, sees that voters hate data centers and is rushing to oppose them, Crowley is circumspect on the issue. He’s expressed opposition to a full moratorium on their expansion in Wisconsin. (In contrast, Bottoms has smartly called for a pause on data center construction in Georgia.)
Bottoms is running on an unusual (and I think misguided) proposal to suspend local taxes on groceries. But otherwise, she and Crowley have pretty traditional, dull platforms. Neither is likely to excite young voters or people who don’t traditionally vote. Their political approach is similar to Biden’s or Kamala Harris’s: to cast Republicans as radical and Democrats as the commonsense alternative. This style might work in 2026, since Trump is in office and deeply unpopular. But it just failed in 2024.
Polls suggest that Bottoms and Crowley are narrowly leading. But as we’ve relearned this year, state-level polls are often wrong. And it’s hard to take comfort in surveys when Bottoms and Crowley are running against history and racism. No Black woman has ever been elected governor anywhere in the U.S. Atlanta and Milwaukee have often been cast as poverty and crime-ridden cities because they have large Black populations. Keisha Bottoms and David Crowley are not as progressive as I prefer, but their wins in November would be historic breakthroughs that all Democrats can celebrate.
