Atlanta City Council President Felicia Moore filed paperwork on Jan. 20th with the State of Georgia that would allow her to raise funds for an upcoming mayoral campaign. Indications are, she would run against the incumbent, Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms. Moore has been a member of the Atlanta City Council for twenty years, serving as the leader of District Nine in the Collier Hills neighborhood.
Moore has not formally announced her candidacy. The last five council presidents before Moore, including Ceasar Mitchell, Lisa Borders, and Cathy Woolard each have run for mayor. None were successful.
Mayor Bottoms has received criticism regarding the rising homicides in Atlanta since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2020, there were 157 deaths in the City of Atlanta that were ruled as a homicide, according to Atlanta Police, a 58% increase from 2019.
“I want to be clear: I know what I’m responsible for in the city and I take it very seriously. I don’t like being here,” said Bottoms during a press conference on December 29, 2020. “I don’t want to be in this situation again to talk about this. What I do know is APD is doing what they can. If there are resources we don’t have, we’ll move mountains to solve problems. We are working to address the systemic issues we have. But if there’s something we should have to fix it, let us know.”
Bottoms has since launched the “One Atlanta, One APD” Immediate Action Plan seeking to combat the rise in violent crime.
The last time a candidate beat a sitting Atlanta mayor was in 1973, when Maynard Jackson defeated Sam Massell, becoming the city’s first Black mayor.
