Atlanta's black vote stayed Republican longer than most places

[Senator Incitatus]

Is there any data on how Mack Mattingly did with black voters in 1980? He won that election on the strength of his performance in Atlanta.

[Senator Incitatus]

Is there any data on how Mack Mattingly did with black voters in 1980? He won that election on the strength of his performance in Atlanta.

Based on the county results, I would think he probably won blacks in urban areas and lost them in rural areas, but I'm not really sure. a lot would depend on turnout as well.

I doubt that.  Southern urban whites were some of the first white voters in the South to flip to the GOP - look at Ford's performance in Hinds County, MS, for example.  So I'd imagine white voters were pretty right-wing in Atlanta - not to say he didn't do well with African-American voters, but 1980 just seems too late for it to be an outright majority.

It's possible, though. Talmadge was a notorious segregationist who unapologetically appealed to racists to win the primary over Zell Miller, who won every metro Atlanta area county. It wouldn't shock me if Mattingly narrowly won black Atlantans. I'm going to assume turnout was majorly low, though.

[Senator Incitatus]

Why did Talmadge seemingly overwhelmingly win rural blacks then?

He was Chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee. I would assume he certainly did better with rural black voters (and rural voters generally, controlling for race) – this was also the case in the primary against Miller. Rural blacks had a much stronger interest in his re-election than urban blacks.

Remember, I'm not arguing that Mattingly did win black Atlanta. But it's within the realm of imagination, and it's certainly true that his relative success there won him the race. You can see very clearly how the nomination of a liberal with support from black Atlantans (Wyche Fowler) in 1986 forced Mattingly to rely on more suburban votes and ultimately led to his loss.

I am currently doing more research into the 1980 and '86 races and will update if I find anything of interest.