She subsequently ran for Mayor of Atlanta in 1993, before running as the Republican Party's nominee for Lieutenant governor of Georgia in 1994,[1] where she lost to incumbent Democrat Pierre Howard.[3][4] She unsuccessfully sought the Republican nomination for Governor in 1998, finishing in third place behind Guy Millner and Mike Bowers with 7.7% of the vote in the party's primary election.[3][5] She was elected to the State Senate in 2004 for the northern-state 50th district,[6] where she served until she was defeated by Jim Butterworth in a Republican primary in 2008.[3] She had also sought to wrest the Republican nomination for Georgia's 10th congressional district from Paul Broun in 2008, but withdrew her candidacy before the primary election.[7]