1948 United States Senate election in Georgia

1948 U.S. Senate Democratic primary in Georgia

←  1942 September 8, 1948 1954  →

Nominee Richard Russell Jr. Party Democratic Electoral vote 410 Popular vote 703,048 Percentage 99.98%

County results Russell:      >90%

U.S. senator before election Richard Russell Jr. Democratic Elected U.S. Senator Richard Russell Jr. Democratic

The 1948 United States Senate election in Georgia took place on November 2, 1948. Incumbent Democratic U.S. Senator Richard Russell Jr. was re-elected to a fourth term in office.

As was common at the time, the Democratic candidate ran with no 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.

County unit system

From 1917 until 1962, the Democratic Party in the U.S. state of Georgia used a voting system called the county unit system to determine victors in statewide primary elections. ^[1]

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. ^{[2] [3]}

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. ^{[2] [3]}

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. ^[4]

Candidates

• William C. Lankford, former U.S. Representative (write-in)
• Richard Russell Jr., incumbent U.S. Senator

Results

Democratic primary [5] [6]
Candidate	Votes	%	CUV
Richard Russell Jr.	703,048	99.98	410
William C. Lankford	118	0.02	0

General election

Results

1948 U.S. Senate election in Georgia ^{[7] [8] [9] [10]}

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Democratic	Richard Russell Jr. (incumbent)	362,104	99.89%
	Write-In	Larkin Marshall	388	0.11%
	Write-In	Ellis Arnall	9	0.00%
	Write-In	Roy Harris	2	0.00%
	Write-In	Harry Sommers	1	0.00%
Turnout			362,504
	Democratic hold		Swing

References

1. "County Unit System". Georgia County Clerks Association. Archived from the original on May 31, 2008. Retrieved June 8, 2020.
2. "Eugene Talmadge". The Jim Crow Encyclopedia. The African American Experience. Archived from the original on January 23, 2015. Retrieved August 12, 2013.
3. "County Unit System, eh?". Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies. October 6, 2011. Retrieved June 8, 2020.
4. Buchanan, Scott (June 13, 2017). "County Unit System". New Georgia Encyclopedia. Retrieved June 8, 2020.
5. Congressional Quarterly 1998, p. 113.
6. Georgia Register 1950, pp. 570–573.
7. Congressional Quarterly 1998, p. 84.
8. Clerk of the U.S. House of Representatives (March 1, 1949). "Statistics of the Presidential and Congressional Election of November 2, 1948" (PDF). U.S. Government Printing Office.
9. "GA US Senate, 1948". Our Campaigns. Retrieved September 5, 2021.
10. Georgia Register 1950, pp. 611–613.

Bibliography

• Congressional Elections, 1946-1996. Washington, D.C.: Congressional Quarterly Inc. 1998. ISBN   1-56802-248-4.
• Compiled by Mrs. J. E. Hays, State Historian and Director (1950). Georgia's Official Register, 1945-1950 (PDF). Atlanta, Georgia: State of Georgia, Department of Archives and History.