The combined Georgia House and Senate chose Maddox, 182 to 66. More than thirty Democrats defected to Callaway because he held a slim statewide plurality or had carried their districts. Elliott Levitas, Arnall's law partner from Atlanta, backed Callaway. In 1974, in a heavily Democratic year, he unseated the Republican U.S. Representative Ben Blackburn. Also in 1974, George Busbee, another Callaway supporter, defeated Maddox for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination and then trounced the Republican nominee, Ronnie Thompson, the former mayor of Macon. Under a change in the law, Busbee became the first Georgia governor to serve two consecutive terms.