In the South, there were numerous Republican counties, notably in Texas, Tennessee, North Carolina, Kentucky, and Virginia. Even in Georgia, a state in the
Deep South, there were counties returning Republican majorities. This was the result of an attempt by Republican politicians to heal sectional resentment and make the South competitive.
While traveling the South in 1895, McKinley realized that many conservative Southern whites were angry at the populist radicals who controlled the Democratic Party in their states. White businessmen of Georgia wanted the support of a party that would oppose regulation and taxation as long as it would allow them to preserve
white supremacy. The possibility of preserving white supremacy without offending loyal black Republicans seemed like a possibility after black leader
Booker T. Washington gave a speech in 1895 that proposed the "
Atlanta Compromise", which held that whites should support blacks in their struggle for economic independence as they learned trade and industry, and in return blacks would not challenge the political or social order of
Jim Crow. The policy was somewhat of a success because McKinley won 37% of Georgia's vote (the closest a Republican would come to winning the state until
1928).