COLUMBUS, Ga. (AP) — It's the longest walk in Georgia politics — the 600 steps from the mayor's office in Atlanta's towering City Hall to the governor's office in the gold-domed state Capitol.

No Atlanta mayor has ever made the journey to the state's top office, but Democrat Keisha Lance Bottoms is undeterred.

“I’m going to be the first because I am working to earn people’s votes across the state,” she said after a campaign appearance in Columbus last week. “So just because it hasn't happened doesn’t mean that it can’t happen.”

The former mayor must initially overcome six others in a Democratic primary in May. If she pushes through that thicket, Republicans lie in wait to attack Bottoms on how she managed crime, disorder and the COVID pandemic as mayor before jolting Atlanta politicos

See Full Page