Bottoms And Norwood Advance to Runoff In Mayoral Race

Keisha Lance Bottoms and Mary Norwood are the top two vote-getters in Tuesday’s election and are now headed to a runoff.

Unofficial election returns early Wednesday morning showed that Bottoms had about 27 percent of the vote to Norwood’s 21 percent.

The two candidates now face off in a Dec. 5 runoff since no candidate won a majority of votes.

The winner of the runoff will replace two-term Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed, who is leaving due to term limits.

Bottoms and Norwood emerged first and second from a field of nearly a dozen candidates vying for the high-profile position.

Reed will leave his successor with a thicket of challenges facing Georgia’s capital city. Among them are traffic-clogged highways showing no sign of easing and a lack of affordable housing in a city where rents and home prices have soared. The new mayor also inherits Atlanta’s aggressive effort to lure Amazon’s coveted second headquarters, with a decision expected next year.