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Carter 50–60% 60–70% 70–80% 80–90%
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| Elections in Georgia |
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The 1976 United States presidential election in Georgia was held on November 2, 1976. The Democratic candidate, former Governor of Georgia Jimmy Carter, overwhelmingly won his home state with 66.74% of the vote ahead of the Republican Party candidate, incumbent President Gerald Ford, giving him the state's 12 electoral votes. Carter carried all of Georgia's 159 counties (the last time any presidential candidate has won every single county in the state) and 10 congressional districts by wide margins.[1]
This is the only presidential election in Georgia's history where the Democratic candidate carried all of Georgia's counties, despite the state's long Democratic streak, as Republicans never carried the state until 1964, compared to this beginning of just a 2-election streak.[2] This represented a complete flip from the previous election when President Richard Nixon also carried every county in Georgia. Carter also carried 160 of 161 of Georgia’s historical counties ( losing the former Milton County, which he lost to Ford 51.1-48.9 percent respectively.) In fact many precincts, particularly in North Fulton and DeKalb Counties voted for Ford sometimes by landslide margins. (For example one precinct in Dunwoody voted for Ford by a margin of 1245 to 500). Carter’s percentage total in the popular vote, however, was less than that of previous Democratic victors in the state like Woodrow Wilson, James M. Cox, John W. Davis, and Franklin D. Roosevelt. Nevertheless, none of these candidates carried every county in the state, as Carter remains the solitary Democrat to carry historically pro-Union, East Tennessee-oriented[3] Fannin County since 1912, and indeed the only Democrat to obtain a majority of the vote there since William Jennings Bryan in 1900.[4] The following counties have also never voted for a Democrat since: Dade, Walker, Catoosa, Fayette, Columbia, Lee and Lowndes.[5] Douglas and Rockdale counties would not vote Democratic for president again until 2008, and Cobb and Gwinnett would not do so until 2016.
58% of white voters supported Carter while 42% supported Ford.[6][7]
- ^ "1976 Presidential General Election Results - Georgia". Retrieved April 25, 2016.
- ^ Thomas, G. Scott; The Pursuit of the White House: A Handbook of Presidential Election Statistics and History, p. 425 ISBN 0313257957
- ^ Mosher, John; Weber, Jennifer L.: Copperheads: The Rise and Fall of Lincoln’s Opponents in the North (book review); History, 35(3) (2007), pp. 303–304.
- ^ Robinson, Edgar Eugene; The Presidential Vote, 1896-1932, p. 165.
- ^ Sullivan, Robert David; ‘How the Red and Blue Map Evolved Over the Past Century’; America Magazine in The National Catholic Review; June 29, 2016.
- ^ Black & Black 1992, p. 295.
- ^ Black & Black 1992, p. 335.