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 County results Cleland: 40–50% 50–60% 60–70% 70–80% Millner: 40–50% 50–60% 60–70% | |||||||||||||||||
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| Elections in Georgia |
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The 1996 United States Senate election in Georgia was held on November 5, 1996. Incumbent Democratic United States Senator Sam Nunn decided to retire instead of seeking a fifth term. Democratic Secretary of State Max Cleland won the open seat over Republican businessman Guy Millner.
Primary elections were held on July 9. Cleland won the Democratic primary unopposed. Millner, a multi-millionaire who had been the nominee for governor in 1994, faced a six-man field including State Senators Clint Day and Johnny Isakson. Millner and Isakson advanced to a run-off, which Millner won narrowly on August 6.
Cleland won narrowly with 48.9% of the vote, which was only possible because the Democratic legislature had repealed the run-off majority requirement after the 1992 Senate election, when Senator Wyche Fowler lost after leading the initial November election with a plurality. This was the closest race for this seat since the passage of the Seventeenth Amendment, which requires popular elections. It was the second-closest race of the 1996 United States Senate elections after the election in Louisiana.
A Democrat would not be elected to a full term in the United States Senate from Georgia again until 2020.[a]
This election was the first open-seat United States Senate election in Georgia since 1956 and the first open-seat United States Senate election in Georgia to this seat since 1932.
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