Red State Rising: Triumph of the Republican Party in Georgia

On November 5, 2002—Election Day—most Georgians were surprised to learn that they had elected their first Republican governor in 130 years, becoming the last state of the old Confederacy to break the long-time Democratic lock on the governor’s office and both houses of the state legislature. Former state senator and businessman Sonny Perdue, from the Middle Georgia town of Bonaire, defeated the well-financed incumbent governor, Roy Barnes. In the same election, Democrat Tom Murphy, the long...