Birmingham Police Sergeant Travis Hendrix will likely represent House District 55 in the next legislative session after defeating Sylvia Swayne for the Democratic nomination.
With no Republican qualifying in the race, Hendrix’s victory means he is almost assuredly going to be the next representative for the district.
Tuesday at 10 p.m., Hendrix had taken about 65 percent of the vote compared to roughly 35 percent for Swayne. Swayne conceded the race around 9 p.m. Tuesday and called Hendrix to congratulate him.
Swayne, a quality assurance manager, stood to be the first transgender person to ever serve in the Alabama House of Representatives.
Swayne lost the race despite a last-minute infusion of PAC funding, which she originally pledged not to take, bringing in more than $124,00o in PAC funding. Most of that came from Leader We Deserve, a PAC co-founded by gun control activist and Stoneman Douglas school shooting survivor David Hogg.
Swayne raised about that much more than Hendrix altogether, bringing in a total of $209,352 compared to Hendrix’s $81,837. Hendrix himself raised $57,000 from PACs, with the top contributor being Alabama Works PAC at $14,000.
Controversy arose last week when a pro-Hendrix flier emerged attacking Swayne’s gender identity. Swayne said she does not belie the flier came from the Hendrix campaign, which denounced the flier. The flier says Swayne “was born to be a white male and lives as a white woman/transgender.”
The special election was held in response to the resignation of Fred Plump, who left the House as part of a guilty plea to a fraud scheme in which he funneled hundreds of thousands of dollars from a local youth sports league to Rep. John Rogers’ assistant.
