Herman Talmadge, the son of the winner of the 1946 election, the late Eugene Talmadge,[3] defeated Governor Thompson in the Democratic primary by a margin of 51.8% to 45.1% with three other candidates getting 3.1% of the vote[4][5] and then proceeded to win the general election with 97.51% of the vote.
As was common at the time, the Democratic candidate ran with only token opposition in the general election so therefore the Democratic primary was the real contest, and winning the primary was considered tantamount to election.
Democratic primary
The Democratic primary election was held on September 8, 1948. As Talmadge won a majority of county unit votes, there was no run-off.
The system was ostensibly designed to function similarly to the Electoral College, but in practice the large ratio of unit votes for small, rural counties to unit votes for more populous urban areas provided outsized political influence to the smaller counties.[7][8]
Under the county unit system, the 159 counties in Georgia were divided by population into three categories. The largest eight counties were classified as "Urban", the next-largest 30 counties were classified as "Town", and the remaining 121 counties were classified as "Rural". Urban counties were given 6 unit votes, Town counties were given 4 unit votes, and Rural counties were given 2 unit votes, for a total of 410 available unit votes. Each county's unit votes were awarded on a winner-take-all basis.[7][8]
Candidates were required to obtain a majority of unit votes (not necessarily a majority of the popular vote), or 206 total unit votes, to win the election. If no candidate received a majority in the initial primary, a runoff election was held between the top two candidates to determine a winner.[9]
^ ab"Eugene Talmadge". The Jim Crow Encyclopedia. The African American Experience. Archived from the original on January 23, 2015. Retrieved August 12, 2013.
^ ab"County Unit System, eh?". Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies. October 6, 2011. Retrieved November 14, 2020.
^Buchanan, Scott (June 13, 2017). "County Unit System". New Georgia Encyclopedia. Retrieved November 14, 2020.
^Rev. William C. Kernan (January 24, 1947). "The Common Defense". The Ithacan. Vol. XVIII, no. 14. Ithaca College, Ithaca, NY. p. 2. Retrieved November 14, 2020.
Gubernatorial Elections, 1787-1997. Washington, D.C.: Congressional Quarterly Inc. 1998. ISBN1-56802-396-0.
Glashan, Roy R. (1979). American Governors and Gubernatorial Elections, 1775-1978. Meckler Books. ISBN0-930466-17-9.
Compiled by Mrs. J.E. Hays, State Historian and Director (1950). Georgia's Official Register, 1945-1950(PDF). Atlanta, GA: State of Georgia, Department of Archives and History.