Though Obama benefited from high turnout by black and young voters as well as strong performance in Georgia's Urban areas, McCain's comparatively stronger performance in the rural northern and southeastern parts of the state, as well as winning seventy-seven percent of white voters,[3] gave him the overall victory.

Despite holding a substantial lead over Martin for most of the year, however, the race tightened following the September 2008 market collapse and Chambliss's vote for the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, otherwise commonly known as the bailout package.

Martin criticized his opponent for voting for the bailout and also, as earlier, repeatedly claimed he supported a supposed twenty-three percent increase in taxes (referring to the FairTax) during his career in Congress.

Chambliss accused his opponent, who cast himself as a fiscal conservative, of acting hypocritically for increasing and padlocking his own salary as Commissioner of Human Resources from 2002 to 2003 while the state of Georgia was experiencing a budget crisis.

Libertarian nominee Allen Buckley, who on occasion joined Martin in his disapproval of Chambliss's vote for the controversial bailout, campaigned positioning himself as an alternative to both of the major party candidates.

[6] District 13 Rep. Katie Dempsey (R-Rome) sought re-election in Floyd County, and faced her 2006 challenger Bob Puckett (who lost by just 168 votes) again.

[6] District 95 Democrat George Wilson of Stone Mountain lost to incumbent Rep. Robert Mumford (R-Conyers) in 2006 by about 500 votes.

Incumbent state Supreme Court Associate Justices Robert Benham and Harris Hines were re-elected without opposition.

[9] Two judges, those being Gary Andrews and Charles B. Mikell, were re-elected without opposition and one, John H. Ruffin, Jr, retired.

The seven candidates who would run in the election were Dekalb County prosecutor Mike Sheffield, state Senators (former and then-current respectively Perry McGuire (R) (the 2006 Republican Attorney General nominee) and Michael Meyer von Bremen (D) (who at the time was the Chairman of the Senate Special Judiciary committee), and attorneys Sara Doyle,[11] Tamela Adkins, Christopher McFadden, and Bruce Edenfield.