Atlanta, GA Mayor: On behalf of Fox's local affiliate, we have our first poll of Tuesday's runoff election for mayor of Atlanta. Opinion Savvy gives Democratic City Councilor Keisha Lance Bottoms a 42-39 edge over fellow Councilor Mary Norwood, who identifies as an independent in this very blue city. The race to succeed termed-out Mayor Kasim Reed is officially non-partisan, but the state Democratic Party has run ads arguing that Norwood is a "closet Republican."
Bottoms led Norwood 26-21 in November’s nonpartisan primary, but Norwood has done a far better job winning over their defeated rivals. On Wednesday, ex-City Council President Cathy Woolard, who took third place with 17 percent of the vote, backed Norwood, following endorsements from former city Chief Operating Officer Peter Aman, who took 11 percent, and City Council President Ceasar Mitchell, who won 9 percent. And while ex-state Sen. Vincent Fort, a Bernie Sanders ally who took 10 percent, has announced that he won't be taking sides, he heaped praise on Norwood at a recent press conference. City Councilor Kwanza Hall, who won just 4 percent, is the only defeated candidate who has endorsed Bottoms (or at least the only defeated candidate who cleared 1 percent of the vote).
While endorsements from also-rans never automatically translate into votes, there’s good reason to think they’ll prove beneficial for Norwood. All of the defeated candidates are Democrats, and they could make it tougher for Bottoms and her allies to portray Norwood as a stealth Republican—an image problem Norwood could use some help with after she loudly echoed Republican talking points when she claimed earlier this year, without evidence, that voter fraud cost her victory in her 2009 race against Reed.
Racial politics are another factor here. Bottoms is black, while Norwood would be Atlanta's first white mayor since the late Maynard Jackson ousted Sam Massell in 1973. Mitchell, and Fort are both African-American, as is former Mayor Shirley Franklin, another prominent Democrat who gave her backing to Norwood earlier this week (Woolard and Aman are white). Atlanta has been a majority-black town for decades, but the city has grown whiter in recent years: While African-Americans made up 54 percent of Atlanta’s residents in 2010, when Reed took office, the city is now 51 percent black. And in the primary, black candidates took a combined 51 percent of the vote, while white contenders took 48 percent. If these endorsements from black politicians help Norwood do just a little better with black voters than Bottoms does with white voters, it could make all the difference.
Bottoms does have Reed’s vocal support, but if it’s helped her, it’s also sparked a backlash that seems to have helped persuade her former opponents, as well as Franklin, to back Norwood. The abrasive Reed has alienated much of Atlanta’s political establishment over the years, and a scandal involving the city’s former procurement director has Reed’s critics saying the city needs a new direction.
Notably, both Woolard and Franklin have said they’re supporting Norwood in large part because they believe she would improve transparency at city hall. Aman similarly argued that the city can't "afford four more years of a Reed-Bottoms team" when he made his endorsement. Mitchell didn't emphasize Reed when he made his decision, but he has a horrible relationship with the mayor: After Mitchell made his choice in the runoff, the mayor quipped, "Ceasar Mitchell supporting Mary Norwood is one man, one woman, two losers." But if things don’t go Bottoms’ way, Reed’s own endorsement might wind up earning the stamp of “one man, one woman, two losers” in the end.