Politics of Georgia (U.S. state)
Year | Republican / Whig | Democratic | Third party | |||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
No. | % | No. | % | No. | % | |
2020 | 2,461,854 | 49.24% | 2,473,633 | 49.47% | 64,473 | 1.29% |
2016 | 2,089,104 | 50.38% | 1,877,963 | 45.29% | 179,758 | 4.33% |
2012 | 2,078,688 | 53.19% | 1,773,827 | 45.39% | 55,854 | 1.43% |
2008 | 2,048,759 | 52.10% | 1,844,123 | 46.90% | 39,276 | 1.00% |
2004 | 1,914,254 | 57.93% | 1,366,149 | 41.34% | 24,078 | 0.73% |
2000 | 1,419,720 | 54.67% | 1,116,230 | 42.98% | 60,854 | 2.34% |
1996 | 1,080,843 | 47.01% | 1,053,849 | 45.84% | 164,379 | 7.15% |
1992 | 995,252 | 42.88% | 1,008,966 | 43.47% | 316,915 | 13.65% |
1988 | 1,081,331 | 59.75% | 714,792 | 39.50% | 13,549 | 0.75% |
1984 | 1,068,722 | 60.17% | 706,628 | 39.79% | 743 | 0.04% |
1980 | 654,168 | 40.95% | 890,733 | 55.76% | 52,566 | 3.29% |
1976 | 483,743 | 32.96% | 979,409 | 66.74% | 4,306 | 0.29% |
1972 | 881,496 | 75.04% | 289,529 | 24.65% | 3,747 | 0.32% |
1968 | 380,111 | 30.40% | 334,440 | 26.75% | 535,715 | 42.85% |
1964 | 616,584 | 54.12% | 522,557 | 45.87% | 195 | 0.02% |
1960 | 274,472 | 37.43% | 458,638 | 62.54% | 239 | 0.03% |
1956 | 216,652 | 32.65% | 441,094 | 66.48% | 5,734 | 0.86% |
1952 | 198,979 | 30.34% | 456,823 | 69.66% | 1 | 0.00% |
1948 | 76,691 | 18.31% | 254,646 | 60.81% | 87,427 | 20.88% |
1944 | 59,880 | 18.25% | 268,187 | 81.74% | 42 | 0.01% |
1940 | 46,360 | 14.83% | 265,194 | 84.85% | 997 | 0.32% |
1936 | 36,942 | 12.60% | 255,364 | 87.10% | 872 | 0.30% |
1932 | 19,863 | 7.77% | 234,118 | 91.60% | 1,609 | 0.63% |
1928 | 99,368 | 43.36% | 129,602 | 56.56% | 188 | 0.08% |
1924 | 30,300 | 18.19% | 123,200 | 73.96% | 13,077 | 7.85% |
1920 | 41,089 | 27.63% | 107,162 | 72.06% | 465 | 0.31% |
1916 | 11,294 | 7.03% | 127,754 | 79.51% | 21,633 | 13.46% |
1912 | 5,191 | 4.27% | 93,087 | 76.63% | 23,192 | 19.09% |
1908 | 41,355 | 31.21% | 72,350 | 54.60% | 18,799 | 14.19% |
1904 | 24,004 | 18.33% | 83,466 | 63.72% | 23,516 | 17.95% |
1900 | 34,260 | 28.22% | 81,180 | 66.86% | 5,970 | 4.92% |
1896 | 59,395 | 36.56% | 93,885 | 57.78% | 9,200 | 5.66% |
1892 | 48,408 | 21.70% | 129,446 | 58.01% | 45,272 | 20.29% |
1888 | 40,499 | 28.33% | 100,493 | 70.31% | 1,944 | 1.36% |
1884 | 48,603 | 33.84% | 94,667 | 65.92% | 340 | 0.24% |
1880 | 54,470 | 34.59% | 102,981 | 65.41% | 0 | 0.00% |
1876 | 50,533 | 27.97% | 130,157 | 72.03% | 0 | 0.00% |
1872 | 62,550 | 45.03% | 76,356 | 54.97% | 0 | 0.00% |
1868 | 57,109 | 35.73% | 102,707 | 64.27% | 0 | 0.00% |
1860 | 0 | 0.00% | 11,581 | 10.85% | 95,136 | 89.15% |
1856 | 0 | 0.00% | 56,581 | 57.14% | 42,439 | 42.86% |
1852 | 16,660 | 26.60% | 40,516 | 64.70% | 5,450 | 8.70% |
1848 | 47,532 | 51.49% | 44,785 | 48.51% | 0 | 0.00% |
1844 | 42,100 | 48.81% | 44,147 | 51.19% | 0 | 0.00% |
1840 | 40,339 | 55.78% | 31,983 | 44.22% | 0 | 0.00% |
1836 | 24,481 | 51.80% | 22,778 | 48.20% | 0 | 0.00% |
The politics of Georgia change frequently and often follow the rest of the United States in major historical landmarks. The state has a long history, starting in the 18th century as a British colony. The cultural makeup of the early colony led to a ban on slavery being overturned soon after its implementation, setting the stage for the many plantations in the state. Rival governments were formed during the Revolutionary War, with the Patriot government surviving and forming a unified state government after the war. Georgian politics then followed the Democratic-Republican Party before the American Civil War and the Democrats afterward. In fact, the state never voted Republican until 1964, making it the last continental state to do so. Since then, Democrats have won the state just four times, for native son Jimmy Carter in 1976 and 1980, Southerner Bill Clinton in 1992, and for Joe Biden in 2020.
As the political ideologies of the Democratic and Republican parties shifted in the 20th century, Georgia politicians moved to the Republican Party. Republicans won a Senate seat in the state for the first time in history in 1980. Then, Sonny Perdue became the first Republican governor in the state since 1872 upon his election in 2002. In the late 2010s and early 2020s, Georgia became a competitive swing state,[2] with Democrats narrowly winning all statewide federal elections in the 2020 elections, establishing the state as a battleground on the federal level.[3][4] However, the state of Georgia does currently continue to maintain a Republican lean on the state level, with Republicans controlling every statewide office, having Republican majorities in the State House and Senate, as well as a complete Republican pick on the Georgia Supreme Court. Though losing the US Senate race in 2022, statewide Republicans vastly improved their margins of victory from 2018 to 2022 in Georgia.
History
Colonial times
The
Although most early Georgia colonists were
Revolutionary War and Antebellum years
Bulloch, who died in 1777, and his colleagues founded a
Georgia had been settled along
In the early
By the 1830s, Georgia politics was split by the Jacksonian Democratic Party and the Anti-Jacksonian Whig Party. Congress passed the Indian Removal Act of 1830, favored by Jackson to void Indian land claims in the Southeast and permit development. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled against Georgia's encroachment on other Indian land in Worcester v. Georgia in 1832, on the grounds that Indian natives were entitled to federal protection. But the ruling was ignored by both presidents and the state, and the federal government proceeded to forcibly remove Indians to west of the Mississippi River. The Cherokee were the last to be forced out, led along what they referred to as the Trail of Tears to Indian Territory, during which many people died.
Former Native American lands were developed for cotton cultivation, and planters brought in thousands of slaves to work the new lands. In 1842 the state legislature declared that black people were non-citizens. After the Compromise of 1850 tried to resolve slavery among the states as an issue of balance of power, the Georgia Platform was accepted by many Southerners as the policy by which secession could be avoided.
Civil War years
In the 1850s, most state Whigs joined a reinvented Democratic Party that became inflexible on the issues of supporting the expansion of slavery and a highly devolved federalism. The victory of Abraham Lincoln, who was considered a moderate abolitionist, in the presidential election of 1860 was perceived as a threat to Georgia interests. This large slave society was the fifth state to secede from the Union. A founding member of the Confederate States of America in 1861, the state sent tens of thousands of soldiers to fight in the American Civil War.[citation needed]
Reconstruction through the 20th century
As in other southern states, white conservative Democrats regained control of the state legislature in the 1870s, through a combination of force, intimidation and fraud, with widespread voter suppression of black Republicans. At the turn of the 20th century, Georgia passed a new constitution and amendments that in practice
In the postwar era after World War II, African Americans, particularly veterans, renewed their activism for civil rights, including being able to exercise the franchise. Conservative white Democrats formed the
During the 1960s and 1970s, Georgia made significant changes in civil rights, governance, and economic growth focused on Atlanta. It was a bedrock of the emerging "New South". In 1983, Georgia's tenth Constitution was ratified, and is the newest state constitution in the United States as of 2015.
Modern politics
In 2002,
In 2004, its voters passed a ban on same-sex marriage with 76% voting yes.[9] The ban was invalidated in 2015 by the United States Supreme Court case Obergefell v. Hodges.
About half of all
In the early 2020s, despite a Republican
Federal representation
Georgia currently has 14 House districts In the 118th Congress, 5 of Georgia's seats are held by Democrats and 9 are held by Republicans. There are as follows:
- Georgia's 1st congressional district represented by Buddy Carter (R)
- Georgia's 2nd congressional district represented by Sanford Bishop (D)
- Georgia's 3rd congressional district represented by Drew Ferguson (R)
- Georgia's 4th congressional district represented by Hank Johnson (D)
- Georgia's 5th congressional district represented by Nikema Williams (D)
- Georgia's 6th congressional district represented by Rich McCormick (R)
- Georgia's 7th congressional district represented by Lucy McBath (D)
- Georgia's 8th congressional district represented by Austin Scott (R)
- Georgia's 9th congressional district represented by Andrew Clyde (R)
- Georgia's 10th congressional district represented by Mike Collins (R)
- Georgia's 11th congressional district represented by Barry Loudermilk (R)
- Rick Allen(R)
- Georgia's 13th congressional district represented by David Scott (D)
- Georgia's 14th congressional district represented by Marjorie Taylor Greene (R)
Georgia's two United States Senators are Democrats Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, both serving since 2021.
Georgia is part of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, the United States District Court for the Middle District of Georgia, and the United States District Court for the Southern District of Georgia in the federal judiciary. The district's cases are appealed to the Atlanta-based United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit.
See also
- Government of Georgia (U.S. state)
- Elections in Georgia (U.S. state)
- Official Code of Georgia
References
- ^ Leip, David. "Presidential General Election Results Comparison – Georgia". US Election Atlas. Archived from the original on October 25, 2022. Retrieved October 24, 2022.
- ^ "How Georgia became a swing state for the first time in decades". Washington Post. 8 Nov 2020. Archived from the original on 13 March 2021. Retrieved 7 Jan 2021.
- ^ a b "Joe Biden confirmed as Georgia winner after recount". The Guardian. 20 Nov 2020. Archived from the original on 6 October 2021. Retrieved 7 Jan 2021.
- ^ a b "How Black voters lifted Georgia Democrats to Senate runoff victories". The Guardian. 7 Jan 2021. Archived from the original on 7 January 2021. Retrieved 7 Jan 2021.
- ^ "Establishing the Georgia Colony - American Memory Timeline- Classroom Presentation | Teacher Resources - Library of Congress". www.loc.gov. Archived from the original on 2019-12-18. Retrieved 2019-12-18.
- ^ Richard M. Valelly, The Two Reconstructions: The Struggle for Black Enfranchisement Archived 2023-02-06 at the Wayback Machine, University of Chicago Press, 2009
- ^ Michael Perman.Struggle for Mastery: Disfranchisement in the South, 1888–1908. Chapel Hill: North Carolina Press, 2001, Introduction
- ^ Buchanan, Scott (27 July 2004). "Dixiecrats". Archived from the original on 12 October 2012. Retrieved 1 January 2013.
- ^ "Georgia Marriage Amendment, Question 1 (2004)". Ballotpedia. Archived from the original on 30 September 2010. Retrieved 22 May 2010.
- ^ Jarvie, Jenny (13 November 2020). "Biden is projected to win Georgia. Here's how he flipped the Southern battleground". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on 5 January 2021. Retrieved 20 January 2021.