1942 United States Senate election in Georgia

The 1942 United States Senate election in Georgia took place on November 3, 1942. Incumbent Democratic U.S. Senator Richard Russell Jr. was re-elected to a third term (a second full term) in office.

1942 U.S. Senate Democratic primary in Georgia

← 1936 September 9, 1942 1948 →

Nominee Richard Russell Jr. William D. Upshaw Party Democratic Democratic Electoral vote 410 0 Popular vote 232,084 55,845 Percentage 80.60% 19.40%

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

As was common at the time, the Democratic candidate ran with nominal 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 9, 1942.

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

• Richard Russell Jr., incumbent U.S. Senator
• William D. Upshaw, former U.S. Representative

Results

Democratic primary^[5]^[6]^[7]
Candidate	Votes	%	CUV
Richard Russell Jr.	232,084	80.60	410
William D. Upshaw	55,845	19.40	0

General election

Results

1942 U.S. Senate election in Georgia^{[8][9][10][11]}

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Democratic	Richard Russell Jr. (incumbent)	59,870	96.94%
	Independent	Mrs. LeVert Dwyer Shivers	1,892	3.06%
Turnout			61,762
	Democratic hold		Swing

References

1. . Georgia County Clerks Association. Archived from the original on May 31, 2008. Retrieved June 8, 2020.
2. . 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. Guide to US Elections 2005, p. 1376.
6. "GA US Senate, 1942 - D Primary". Our Campaigns. Retrieved September 6, 2021.
7. Georgia Register 1943, pp. 653–656.
8. Guide to US Elections 2005, p. 1328.
9. Clerk of the U.S. House of Representatives (January 30, 1943). "Statistics of the Congressional Election of November 3, 1942" (PDF). U.S. Government Printing Office.
10. "GA US Senate, 1942". Our Campaigns. Retrieved September 6, 2021.
11. Georgia Register 1943, pp. 684–685.

Bibliography

• Guide to US Elections, Fifth Edition, Volume II. CQ Press. 2005. ISBN 978-1-56802-981-8. Retrieved September 6, 2021.
• Compiled by Mrs. J. E. Hays, State Historian and Director (1943). Georgia's Official Register, 1939-1943 (PDF). Atlanta, Georgia: State of Georgia, Department of Archives and History.