On Tuesday, Keisha Lance Bottoms became the first Black female elected governor in the U.S. I remember sitting in my home office in the middle of the night in May of 2020, cutting clips for Morning Joe of her address to her city as Atlanta mayor, thinking, “Someone has a political future beyond mayor.” Her win feels like an eventuality made real. But the margin was a surprise.

Bottoms came into the national spotlight after Minneapolis police officers killed George Floyd, and Black Americans across the country erupted in anger. At an address to the city where violence was spreading, she spoke as a mother feeling helpless to protect her teenaged son, asking him in front of a national audience to just stay home.

My own son was several years older than hers and no amount of my asking him to stay off the streets was going to get through. But I understood Mayor Lance Bottoms’s fear for both her son and her city, as she asked folks to go to the ballot box that fall in response to the killing, instead of tearing down Atlanta neighborhoods. I imagine most mothers watching, particularly Black ones, could relate.

She had to keep the calm a second time, after Atlanta police shot Rayshard Brooks in the parking lot of a Wendy’s. Many would say she failed, as protests over the Brooks killing led to another shooting during an anti-police protest that resulted in the death of eight-year-old Secoriea Turner. Bottoms went on television and told her citizens to stop shooting each other up in the streets. She also refused to blame police for the child’s death, putting the blame squarely on citizens who took matters into their own hands.

In short, the summer of 2020 put her on the national scene, and President Joe Biden kept her there by considering her to be his running mate and then making her senior advisor in is administration. Now, here we are.

I have three family members living in Georgia, all of whom are very happy women today, as am I. Truth be told, I would have been happier still had the margin been as close as was expected. This one feels somehow deceptive, as if the win came as much from voters who stayed home as those who came out for her.

In any case, it is my hope that she governs as if she were just elected in Virginia, a commonwealth that only gives the executive one term. In other words, may she waste no time. Hopefully, she will acclimate quickly, then get to work at restoring the rights of women to self governance and the right of all Georgians to get healthcare.

The re-election is likely to be legitimately close when Republicans stopping being angry at their party. May she start them on enlightenment on day one. Georgia looks good bathed in blue!