Almanac Home Browse By State Browse By Name State of Georgia Gov. Miller (D) Sen. Coverdell (R) Sen. Cleland (D) Rep. Kingston (R-01) Rep. Bishop (D-02) Rep. Collins (R-03) Rep. McKinney (D-04) Rep. Lewis (D-05) Rep. Gingrich (R-06) Rep. Barr (R-07) Rep. Chambliss (R-08) Rep. Deal (R-09) Rep. Norwood (R-10) Rep. Linder (R-11)

Without much warning or many predictions, Georgia has emerged as the boom state of the 1990s -- in population, in economy, and in spirit. In 1990 Georgia was the 11th largest state, with 6.4 million people; by 1996 it was just under 7.4 million, with the fastest growth rate east of the Rockies, and had passed fast-growing North Carolina to be the tenth largest state: the first time Georgia has been among the top 10 since the 1850 Census. Almost all this growth has come in the booming Atlanta metropolitan area, not in the core city, but amid the hills of suburban counties for almost 100 miles around, many of them until recently rural. Atlanta was long the capital of the South -- spiritually, financially, and in its central role in the civil rights movement. But now it has become a world city, a status suitably memorialized when it hosted the 1996 Olympics and re-emphasized every day as travelers all over the world watch the news from the CNN Broadcast Center next door to the World Congress Center.

Atlanta's growth is not immediately apparent to the busy traveler: on the approach to Hartsfield Airport, one of the busiest in the world, you see trees and muddy fields, and on the traffic-filled Route 400 toll road in the booming northern suburbs you see what looks like forest all around. There is still something messy and not yet finished about the urban landscapes of greater Atlanta; the landscape has what author John Brinckerhoff Jackson called the disorderliness characteristic of the South, and even the gleaming malls and office towers are never out of sight of kudzu vines and muddy creeks.

If Atlanta's rise to world eminence was not widely foreseen, its rise as the capital of the South was far from inevitable. It was, after all, only a small railroad crossroads when it was burned by General William Tecumseh Sherman's troops as they began their "march to the sea." Richmond, Charleston, and New Orleans all had stronger claims to being the central focus of the South a century ago. But in the 20th Century two figures imprinted Atlanta on the national imagination. One was Margaret Mitchell, whose 1936 novel Gone with the Wind inspired the 1939 movie in which Tara was improbably sited near a burning Atlanta. The other was Martin Luther King, Jr., reared in Atlanta and based there during most of his career, as a leader and ultimately the national symbol of the civil rights revolution that changed the South and the nation. Linking the two was Atlanta's business community, notably Robert Woodruff, who headed Coca-Cola from 1932-60 and made Coke a worldwide enterprise. Perhaps aware that a world company could not indefinitely be associated with racial segregation, Woodruff and William Hartsfield, mayor from 1937-61, cooperated with blacks and promoted Atlanta as "the city too busy to hate." Hartsfield's successor Ivan Allen, elected in 1961 and 1965, supported the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as Peachtree Center and the first atriumed Hyatt Regency were going up in downtown Atlanta.

This new Atlanta was growing up amid a mostly rural, deeply segregationist Georgia that as late as 1960 cast the second highest Democratic percentage of any state for president: memories of General Sherman were still strong. Political contests typically matched Atlanta-supported moderates against rural-supported segregationists, and the latter invariably won: Georgia's electoral votes were cast for Barry Goldwater in 1964 and George Wallace in 1968. Then came change in the person of Jimmy Carter, former nuclear submarine officer and one-term state Senator, who ran and was elected governor in 1970 with a rural base but also with conspicuous black support. On taking office he proclaimed a reconciliation of the races and installed a portrait of Martin Luther King Jr. in the Capitol. Carter thus became one of the first politicians from the rural South to celebrate and honor the civil rights revolution, and set himself on the road to being elected President in 1976. Today he remains a prominent figure in Atlanta, promoting Habitat for Humanity, and around the world, monitoring elections and negotiating conflict resolution in places from Korea to Haiti. Without exactly saying so, Georgia has developed what Charles Moskos and John Sibley Butler in their book on races in the Army, All We Can Be, call an Anglo-African culture, a merger of traditions that were long associated intimately in private life but rigidly and even violently separated in public. This is the dominant culture of the Army, Moskos and Butler argue, and increasingly of the nation; and if they are not yet right about the nation, they surely are about Georgia.

Over the past 20 years Georgia has developed new political patterns, which arguably have been echoed in the country as a whole. The Democratic Party has lost its easy natural majority, and depends increasingly on the black votes. But the party is still capable of winning here: If Bill Clinton lost Georgia to Bob Dole 47%-46% in 1996, he won it over George Bush 43.5%-42.9% in 1992. All of Georgia's top three officeholders won their posts by the narrowest of margins: Democratic Governor Zell Miller won a second term in 1994 by 51%-49%; Republican Senator Paul Coverdell was elected 51%-49% in a November 24, 1992, runoff; Democratic Senator Max Cleland won 49%-48% in 1996 over Guy Millner, the same Republican who lost to Zell Miller. Had Georgia's runoff law not been repealed by the Democratic legislature, Millner might have overtaken Cleland in a second contest as Coverdell did incumbent Wyche Fowler four years earlier.

At other levels Georgia has been moving strongly toward the Republicans. Its best-known downballot statewide official is former Attorney General Michael Bowers, who switched to the Republican Party and won overwhelmingly in 1994. Bowers announced his retirement in early May, presumably to prepare for a run for governor in 1998; Bowers makes a strong candidate and is already considered to be a front runner in the race. Republicans also have made some big gains in Georgia's legislature, long run by Democratic Speaker Thomas Murphy. The Democrats' lead in the House was reduced from 114-66 in 1994 to 106-74 in 1996, and they picked up a seat in the Senate. The transformation has already taken place in the state's U.S. House delegation. Going into the 1992 election, Georgia's House delegation consisted of eight white Democrats, one black Democrat and one Republican, Newt Gingrich. By mid-1995 Georgia was represented by zero white Democrats (after the last one switched parties), three black Democrats and eight Republicans, including the Speaker of the House; Republicans received 53% of the vote for the House in 1996, even while leaving one district uncontested.

What are the lines of division? The central city of Atlanta and suburban areas of south Fulton and DeKalb Counties are black and heavily Democratic; there are similar Democratic cores in the state's smaller cities, some economically thriving, some not. But the suburbs of Atlanta, plus the city's Buckhead and Northside neighborhoods, are heavily Republican; a pattern replicated around well-off growing cities up and down the interstates. It is no good to ascribe this to some lingering segregationist sentiment; many of these neighborhoods were empty land when Jimmy Carter was elected governor, and support for reimposing legal segregation is all but extinct; the sentiment if anything is to get rid of what some see as the discrimination inherent in racial setaside and quota programs. All around the state there are pockets of white areas that vote Democratic -- university precincts, farming communities, some textile mill towns -- and enough white Democrats scattered here and there to keep statewide elections close.

Presidential politics. Georgia used to be an outlier in presidential politics -- the second most Democratic state in 1960, for Barry Goldwater in 1964 and George Wallace in 1968, heavily Republican in 1972, strongly for native son Jimmy Carter in 1976 and 1980. In the 1990s it has emerged as one of the prime marginal states -- for Bill Clinton by 13,000 votes in 1992, for Bob Dole by 27,000 votes in 1996. With many new voters every cycle, Georgia is likely to remain seriously contested and unpredictable.

Georgia's 1992 presidential primary was scheduled one week before Super Tuesday at the insistence of Governor Zell Miller, who wanted to help Bill Clinton, and did: Clinton won smartly to balance losses in Maryland and Colorado the same day. George Bush's 64%-36% victory here over Pat Buchanan showed the Buchanan Brigades were not about to overrun the South. Bob Dole similarly defeated Buchanan 41%-29%. Turnout here has been a gauge of changing partisan balance: Republican turnout increased from 200,000 in 1980 to 400,000 in 1988, 454,000 in 1992 and 561,000 in 1996. Democratic primary turnout fell from 684,000 in 1984 to 612,000 in 1988 and 454,600 in 1992; the 1996 primary was uncontested.

Congressional districting. Georgia is one of three southern states which were forced by the Supreme Court to redraw its congressional districts for 1996. Its 1992 redistricting plan, manufactured by Speaker Tom Murphy, misfired on both its major aims. Murphy had hoped to end the career of Newt Gingrich, who first ran for Congress from Carrollton, 12 miles from Murphy's home in Bremen. But Gingrich was reelected, and Democrats lost ground: they had a 9-1 edge in the delegation when Murphy's plan was drawn but now the delegation is 8-3 Republican. The other purpose, the creation of three black-majority districts, was foisted on the legislature by the Bush Justice Department. But the Supreme Court in June 1995 ruled the convoluted 11th District, which extended from Atlanta to Savannah, was a "racial gerrymander" and violated the Constitution; the legislature failed to produce a new plan in a five-week special session and so a three-judge federal court drew new lines in December 1995. They proved cleaner, following county lines everywhere outside the Atlanta area. Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney complained loudly that her new 4th District including most of DeKalb County did not have a black majority; but she won in November anyway, as did 2d District Congressman Sanford Bishop. McKinney later argued that she won only because of her incumbency and that she never could have won initially in the new district. But her 1996 victory shows that she and many black potential candidates can win in non-black-majority districts, and that they have only themselves to blame if they do not try. The Justice Department and minority rights activists nonetheless contested the lines in a case the Supreme Court heard in December 1996; the Court upheld the plan in June 1997 in a 5-4 ruling ensuring consistent congressional boundaries for the 1998 and 2000 elections.

The People: Est. Pop. 1996: 7,353,000; Pop. 1990: 6,478,216, up 13.5% 1990-1996. 2.8% of U.S. total, 10th largest; 37% rural. Median age: 33.3 years. 10% 65 years and over. 70.1% White, 26.8% Black, 1% Asian; 1.7% Hispanic origin. Households: 55.2% married couple families; 27% married couple fams. w. children; 41% college educ.; median household income: $29,021; per capita income: $13,631; 64.9% owner occupied housing; median house value: $71,300; median monthly rent: $344. 4.6% Unemployment. 1996 Voting age pop.: 5,418,000. 1996 Turnout: 2,298,899; 42% of VAP. Registered voters (1996): 3,811,284; no party registration.

Political Lineup: Governor, Zell Miller (D); Lt. Gov., Pierre Howard (D); Secy. of State, Lewis Massey (D); Atty. Gen., Thurbert Baker (D); Auditor, Claude L. Vickers. State Senate, 56 (34 D and 22 R); Senate President, Pierre Howard (D); State House, 180 (106 D and 74 R); House Speaker, Thomas B. Murphy (D). Senators, Paul Coverdell (R) and Max Cleland (D). Reps., 11 (8 R and 3 D).

Elections Division: 404-656-2871.

Filing Deadline for U.S. Congress: May 1, 1998.

1996 Presidential Vote Dole (R) 1,080,840 (47%) Clinton (D) 1,053,848 (46%) Perot (I) 146,337 (6%)

1992 Presidential Vote Clinton (D) 1,004,295 (43%) Bush (R) 991,139 (43%) Perot (I) 309,202 (13%)

1996 Republican Presidential Primary
Dole (R)	226,732	(41%)
Buchanan (R)	162,627	(29%)
Alexander (R)	75,855	(14%)
Forbes (R)	71,278	(13%)
Other	22,577	(4%)

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