Keisha Lance Bottoms, fired this week by President Donald Trump from a White House job she had resigned from days earlier, isn’t ready to give up on politics. In an interview with Channel 2 Action News, the former Atlanta mayor dropped unsubtle hints about her next move. “When I left the mayor’s office, I always said, ‘Never say never,’” Bottoms told the station. Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms was called the n-word in a text message after she refused to reopen her city despite Gov. Brian Kemp’s decision. (Photo by Rich Graessle/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images) Asked if she was considering a run for a state office, the one-term mayor answered coyly. “So you’re saying there could be something you want to run for in our state?” news anchor Jorge Estevez asked. “There could be,” Bottoms replied. Asked to clarify, she responded, “Well, there will be a governor’s race on the ballot.” Current Gov. Brian Kemp’s tenure will end in 2026, leaving an open field of candidates in both parties. On the Republican side, Attorney General Chris Carr has already announced his intention to run. The establishment favorite, heavily aligned with current Gov. Brian Kemp, could see a challenge from Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, whose MAGA credentials were secured when he joined 15 other Republican electors who falsely claimed that Donald Trump won Georgia in 2020. The race is wide open on the Democratic side. Contenders include DeKalb County CEO Thurmond, who led the state’s division of family and children services and labor department over a long political career; 2014 nominee Jason Carter, the grandson of former President Jimmy Carter; and 6th District Rep. Lucy McBath, who, as political analyst Brian Robinson observed, “has been moved around so much in redistricting that she’s represented close to half of the state.” Bottoms has the résumé, serving as prosecutor and Atlanta City Council member before being elected mayor in 2017. She seemed poised for bigger things with her handling of the protests that followed the police shooting of Rayshard Brooks at an Atlanta drive-thru in 2020. As protesters grew more aggressive, torching police cars and the Wendy’s where Brooks was killed, Bottoms received considerable praise for her tough but empathetic stand. “Go home,” she said at a widely viewed press conference. “When Dr. King was assassinated, we didn’t do this to our city. So if you love this city — this city that has had a legacy of Black mayors and Black police chiefs and people who care about this city, where more than 50 percent of the business owners in Metro Atlanta are minority business owners — if you care about this city, then go home.” Among those impressed: Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden. “Your passion, your composure, your balance has been really incredible,” he told her, according to New York magazine. Her approval rating stood at 68 percent. Crime proved to be her undoing. She feuded with popular police chief Erika Shields, who resigned after Bottoms fired the cops who shot Brooks without due process; a review board later reinstated the officers. Murders were up by 50 percent from 2019 to 2021; among the victims was an 8-year-old girl, Secoriea Turner, shot and killed by two gang members who had manned a barricade neighboring the Wendy’s parking lot in the days following Brooks’ slaying. The city had essentially ceded the intersection to armed civilians, and the mayor paid the price politically. Once considered a possible vice presidential candidate for Joe Biden, she was passed over for Kamala Harris. Declaring she had lost her zeal for the job, Bottoms announced she would not seek a mayoral second term in May 2021.  “My assessment has not been any different than Simone Biles’ or Naomi Osaka’s or Calvin Ridley’s, any number of other people who said, ‘I’m putting my emotional and mental health first,’” she told New York magazine. There was little support, at least on X, for Bottoms’ gubernatorial aspirations. “Didn’t she abandon her post as mayor too???” wrote one reader. “She is a joke! Georgians better wake up!!” commented another. “The last thing Georgia needs is the person that ran Atlanta into the ground for our Governor,” added a third. “Americans just fired her ghetto ass Georgia doesn’t want her back she has been destroying America along with Biden/Harris,” another wrote. Asked if Georgia is ready for “a female governor, “a woman of color, someone with a political past that they can look at and decide,” Bottoms didn’t hesitate. “Absolutely. Absolutely,” she said. However, Democrat Stacey Abrams tried twice to defeat Kemp in the gubernatorial race, coming close in 2018, losing the election with 54,723 votes. She was the first Black woman to run as a major-party gubernatorial nominee in the United States. ‘She Is a Joke!’: MAGA Critics Fling Racist Insults At Keisha Lance Bottoms, Calling Her ‘Ghetto’ As She Hints at Running for Georgia Governor