Atlanta voters are about to elect a new mayor. Voters in Georgia’s capital city will head to the polls on Tuesday to elect their 61st mayor.
Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms announced earlier this year that she would not seek a second term in office, triggering a wide-open race for chief executive of the state’s largest city.
The race comes as the city is at a major crossroads. Violent crime has residents on edge and a portion of the city is threatening to break away. Some are being overwhelmed by the increased cost of living, and the city’s economy is attempting to rebound from pandemic restrictions.
The election is also going to be seen as a test of the Black political establishment in the racially polarized city. Atlanta voters have sent Black mayors to city hall for almost half a century: Bottoms is the city’s sixth Black mayor in a row. That streak appears likely to continue this year, as most of the leading candidates are Black.
The candidates
Atlanta voters will have 14 candidates to choose from in today’s election. All of the candidates will compete on the same ballot in the nonpartisan election. If no one emerges from today’s vote with more than 50% — an outcome that appears all but certain, the top two candidates will advance to a runoff election on November 30. Who are the top candidates competing for your vote?
Bottoms’ predecessor, former Mayor Kasim Reed, is waging a comeback bid for his old job. If he wins, he would be the first former mayor to mount a successful comeback since Maynard Jackson.
City Council President Felicia Moore was one of the earliest entrants to the race. Prior to being elected President, she served on the city council for two decades. She is vying to become the city’s third Back female mayor.
Two of the candidates are city councilmen: Andre Dickens and Antonio Brown. Brown is a local activist and political novice who was elected to the city council in a 2019. Dickens, a tech consultant, has served on the council since 2013.
Of the top contenders, attorney Sharon Gay is the only one who is white. A former chief of staff to Mayor Bill Campbell, Gay is a private attorney who has represented interest groups behind some of the city’s biggest development projects, such as Atlantic Station and Ponce City Market.
What the polls say
Polling indicates that the race is almost guaranteed to advance to a runoff election. A vast majority of voters remain undecided on who they will support and no candidate is polling near the 50% threshold.
But there is one thing that voters do agree on: the next mayor needs to address the increase in violent crime.
“Crime remained the top concern for Atlanta voters. The September poll found that 44% of Atlantans saw it as the most pressing issue; in this poll, the number inched up to 48%. About 61% of respondents said they live within a mile of an area where they’d be afraid to walk alone at night.”
About half of voters — 48% — believe that the city is heading in the “wrong direction.”
“I’m a little alarmed by the low turnout”
Mayor Bottoms has not endorsed any candidate, and we should not expect her to do so. But she did speak about the election in an interview last week.
She told a local TV station that her biggest concern heading into this election was turnout. Numbers show that her concerns are valid: so far, fewer than 10% of registered voters in the city of Atlanta have voted. Election officials expect turnout to end be somewhere between 90,000 to 95,000.
“I’m a little alarmed by the low turnout,” candidate Antonio Brown said after casting his vote early. He singled out the lack of participation among younger voters: “When you look at the data, young people are not voting.”
It will be Atlanta’s fifth election in 18 months. Candidate Sharon Gay believes that this is leading to what she calls voting fatigue. “In Georgia we feel like we’ve been voting for a year,” she said.
It is highly likely that Atlanta will not have a new mayor by the end of the night. The high number of undecided voters, combined with the large field of candidates, makes a runoff all but certain. And it’s those undecided voters that will determine who will make the runoff election.
Buckle up, Atlanta. It’s going to be a long month.