Former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms has agreed to serve as a senior adviser to President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign, moving from volunteer surrogate to an official member of the team.
The news, first reported Wednesday by Ebony magazine, means that Bottoms will become a higher profile fixture on the trail through November.
She told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that she decided to join the campaign staff after growing worried about the possibility of former President Donald Trump’s return to the White House. An AJC poll released this week shows Trump leading Biden by about 5 percentage points in Georgia.
Other polling shows has also shown Trump with an edge in other battleground states.
“I put myself in the seat of a typical voter this cycle. I’ve got teenagers on one side; I have my mom on the other,” Bottoms said. " I’m working and I’m dialing in personally and professionally. We can’t go back.”
The first three years of Bottoms’ term as mayor coincided with Trump’s tenure in the White House. She said her experience with him was characterized by “chaos and uncertainty.”
“Leaders have a lot to deal with,” she said. “But to add an erratic leader in the White House on top of that makes our job especially hard.”
Bottoms served as Biden’s director of the Office of Public Engagement and a senior adviser at the White House from July 2022 through April 2023. Four years ago, during Biden’s first campaign for president, she traveled the nation to stump on his behalf.
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