would hold over the next few decades. A further split would occur along similar lines in 1944, when the Georgia delegation to the Republican National Convention split into two factions, one led by outgoing state chair Clint Hager and the other rallying around Committeeman Walter H. Johnson. The former group elected Roy G. Foster as their chair while the latter group elected W. Roscoe Tucker, but the latter faction had more success being recognized by the national convention as representing the Georgia party, and would emerge as the prevailing faction by 1952, when the Tucker faction (which was pro-Eisenhower) was seated by the national convention over Foster's pro-Taft stance, and Foster folded his faction into the Tucker faction. Split and resurgence (1952–1990) In addition, the 1952 election was the first time that Georgia figured so highly in both the primary and general presidential election for the Republican Party, with Georgia emerging as a key state to help Eisenhower win the nomination and then giving Eisenhower 30% of the popular vote. Much of these gains were due to the efforts of state chair Elbert Tuttle and activist Kil Townsend, who organized a groundswell of support for Eisenhower within Atlanta's growing urban middle and upper class. Townsend had previously organized support for Tom Dewey's campaign in 1948, and Dewey's loss to Harry Truman halted further activity by Townsend until 1950, Eisenhower then appointed state chair Elbert Tuttle as a judge on the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, which would then prove crucial for future Republican gains. While the King v. Chapman ended the white Democratic primary system in Georgia in 1946, ending a practice which locked out anti-Democrat opposition for decades, the Supreme Court decision in Baker v. Carr (1962) was instrumental in opening up the electoral system for the Republican Party in Georgia. Tuttle, as a federal judge, would chair the panel which decided in which courts the multiple subsequent suits against the county unit system were tried, and then directed the legislature’s reapportionment to give urban and suburban citizens, including African-American and many white immigrant Republican voters, a shot at fairer representation. Besides the election of the first African-American members to the General Assembly since 1910 as well as the election of Carl Sanders as the first urban Democrat to the governorship since 1917, Tuttle's destruction of the county unit system also led to an immediate increase in the number