On the Stump: What Does It Take to Get Elected in Georgia?

A passion for public service, a call to family tradition, a commitment to pressing issues of the time, or personal ambition—all have fueled a desire to run for public office. Even as the issues and approaches to campaigning in Georgia have grown more complex, the core motivations for potential candidates have remained relatively unchanged.

Georgians considering a run for elected office in the first decades of the twentieth century decided by talking with family, friends, and prominent people in the community. Some, like the Russells or Talmadges, grew up in political families and received advice and encouragement from relatives about continuing the family business of public service. Campaigning in those days was a relatively straightforward proposition of establishing a strong network of friends and neighbors in various Georgia counties. Fifty years later, as Georgia’s electorate has grown larger and more diverse, mounting a successful political campaign has become a complex proposition. Politicians not only have transitioned to new media to connect with potential voters but also now hire professional operatives to conduct opinion polls and consult with state and national party leaders to gauge broader interest and support. These new sources of information often shape the final decision of when and how to run a campaign.

Candidates running for office in 2016 throw their hats into the ring for many of the same reasons as their counterparts did a century ago. Every political story, great and small, begins with the critical decision to run.

In the years after Reconstruction, the Democratic Party practically monopolized Georgia’s political system by enacting legislation that restricted ballot access and discouraged support for alternative political parties. Perhaps the single most effective mechanism for ensuring Democratic dominance was the “white primary.” Established formally in 1900, this practice excluded the vast majority of African Americans from the political process. Without effective political opposition in general elections, winning the whites-only Democratic primary became “tantamount to election” in Georgia. The white primary remained standard across the South until the mid-1940s, when the United States Supreme Court’s landmark Smith v. Allwright (1944) ruled it unconstitutional. Columbus native Primus King, an African American voter who was denied access to the polls during the 1944 Democratic primary election, lodged a subsequent legal challenge against the Muscogee County Democratic Executive Committee. Decided in 1946, Chapman v. King helped close legal loopholes that remained in the wake of the Smith case.

Although the Smith and King decisions lifted one restriction on Black franchise, other hurdles remained. Georgia’s county unit system, which the U.S. Supreme Court abolished in the 1962 Baker v. Carr decision, favored voters in thinly populated rural counties where African American disfranchisement was almost absolute. Until it was overturned, the county unit system allowed politicians to focus primarily on rural counties to win statewide office.

On a national level, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 effectively banned all racial discrimination in voting. It is still considered one of the civil rights movement’s greatest legislative victories. Along with population growth in metropolitan areas, court-mandated redistricting, and the development of mass media outlets, these transformations shifted political power away from the countryside and to the more diverse and populous cities and suburbs. The presidential campaigns of Republicans Barry Goldwater in 1964 and Ronald Reagan in 1980 added another layer of complexity by boosting the development of a two-party system in Georgia. Ultimately, these complex changes reshaped the campaign trail in Georgia as contenders for public office fought to keep pace with an expanding electorate.

Candidates who manage to secure their political party’s nomination can usually count on considerable support in the post-primary election season. Parties assist with campaign training, fundraising, research, communications, and voter mobilization initiatives. Only recently, however, have party resources reached something near equality in Georgia. After James M. Smith took the governor’s mansion from the Republican Party in 1872, Georgia Democrats did not relinquish control until 2003. Indeed, for almost a century, the Democratic Party of Georgia reigned virtually unchallenged while law, culture, and custom prevented the development of a two-party political system.

Democratic domination of Georgia politics began faltering in the 1960s as the national party grew increasingly liberal on economics and civil rights while the Republican Party embraced the modern conservative movement. These political shifts, as well as prolonged in-migration of northern Republicans to Georgia’s fast-growing cities and suburbs during the mid-twentieth century, reinvigorated the GOP in Georgia. The Republicans’ careful organization, alignment with pro-business policies, and alliance with culturally conservative, evangelical Christians made the party a force to be reckoned with by the 1990s.

Today, demographic shifts are once again altering Georgia’s electorate. The number of registered Hispanic and Asian voters in the state is on the rise. Exit polls from recent statewide elections indicate disproportionately large minority voter participation, and projections suggest white voters will no longer compose a majority of the state’s electorate by 2040. Whether or not these trends continue and produce more diverse candidates remains to be seen.

In the 1950s, it was said that all a candidate needed to get elected in Georgia was political boss Roy V. Harris and $50,000. In 2016 candidates rely on dozens of staffers, a medley of rural and urban counties, and so-called Super PACs, which can accept nearly unlimited donations to run positive and negative advertising on candidates’ behalf. Campaigning has grown from a small-scale affair requiring a few influential people and some modest investment to an enterprise that demands extensive planning, expert management, and vast sums of money to give a candidate a chance for victory.

In the South, office seekers molded strategy around the structures that upheld the one-party system—the white primary, poll tax, and in Georgia, the county unit system. Coupled with intimidation and the threat of violence, these fixtures ensured that African Americans remained largely absent from elections in the state. An entrenched white power structure controlled elections on the local and state levels until the early 1960s.

Political developments in the 1950s and 1960s—white southern resistance to federal civil rights legislation, increased participation of minority groups, the revival of the Republican Party, and new technologies—compelled campaigns to deal with newly powerful voting groups. To better navigate and benefit from these diverse constituencies, politicians began using polling data. They hired publicists and consultants to devise the format and character of advertisements, plot campaign routes and personal appearances, and defuse attacks launched by opponents. Today, candidates increasingly rely on media outlets—radio, television, and the Internet—to project a well-crafted image to the public. These new methods have become essential to extending the personal reach of a candidate to growing numbers of voters.

Some who saw him on stage recalled that a speech by Eugene Talmadge was better than any show they paid to see. With a charismatic personality, plain speech, and his signature red suspenders, Talmadge was a showman seldom rivaled. Despite a middle-class upbringing and law degree, he billed himself as a “real dirt farmer” and delivered rousing oratory centered on strong support for segregation, small government, and the struggles of rural white voters. Talmadge perfected the craft of the stump speech, the standard speech repeated at each campaign stop outlining key parts of a politician’s platform, then the most fundamental way politicians connected with constituents and voters.

Shaking hands and kissing babies—these customs too echoed the need to establish a personal connection with constituents, a cornerstone of early twentieth-century political culture in Georgia. Walking miles a day to give as many speeches as possible, sending personalized mailings, participating in parades, and hosting barbeques and fish-frys filled a candidate’s calendar. From the 1950s onward, the expansion of road networks and access to radio and television extended the reach of the candidate while the distribution of mass-produced campaign gear—buttons, bumper stickers, yard signs, and T-shirts—became another popular electioneering tool.

While traditional speechmaking tours still occur, politicians today more often rely on television and the Internet to communicate with voters. The public consumes speeches piecemeal in the twenty-four-hour news cycle. Candidates continue to search for and adopt new formats allowing them to establish that personal connection with growing numbers of diverse voters in an increasingly digital world.

Democracy in the United States has evolved since its birth to reflect changes in public attitudes, enfranchisement, technology, the economy, and more. Presidential politics has most often paved the way for trends at the state and local level.

The formation of a two-party system during George Washington’s second term launched such traditions as newspaper endorsements and paid campaign surrogates in subsequent elections. The 1840 race between Martin Van Buren and William Henry Harrison was among the first to introduce stump speeches along with partisan rallies and campaign ephemera. Radio advertising began in earnest during the 1930s, followed by television some twenty years later. By the 1960s, campaign politics was an increasingly professionalized cottage industry, with paid media consultants and in-house polling. Today, the explosion of Internet-based politicking, from blogs to online fundraising, ads, polling, and publicity stunts is the new frontier.

Where do you think electoral politics will go next?