This is a big election year in Alabama. All of our constitutional offices are up for election on May 19, 2026, and the races have begun. Included in the cavalcade are governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, agriculture commissioner, state treasurer, secretary of state, and state auditor. All of our statewide elected officials are Republicans, and all will be after the dust settles next year. We are a one-party state when it comes to statewide offices. Our legislature, House and Senate, are overwhelmingly two-thirds Republican. By the way, all 140 legislative seats are up for election in this gigantic election year.
We will discuss the down-ballot races of treasurer, secretary of state, and auditor this week. The secretary of state and auditor are open and incumbent free, just like governor, attorney general, and lieutenant governor.
Our veteran state treasurer, Young Boozer, is up for election and will be re-elected to an unprecedented fifth term as treasurer of the state. Young Boozer is not only the longest serving state treasurer, he is the most qualified, and bona fide, and successful treasurer in state history. It is as though he was born to be and his life scripted to be Alabama’s most remarkable treasurer.
Our Young is actually Young Boozer, III. His father, Young Boozer Jr., was an ultra-successful businessman who founded several major Alabama corporations including Cotton States Life Insurance Company which he sold to ALFA in the 1980s. This Young Boozer, Jr. came out of Dothan High School and played football with Paul “Bear” Bryant at Alabama. They were both stars on Rose Bowl and National Championship teams in the 1930s. Bryant and Boozer remained close friends throughout their lives, and Boozer included Bryant on several business ventures he founded. One of which was Ziegler Meats in Tuscaloosa.
Our current Young Boozer III, our treasurer, graduated from Tuscaloosa High School and matriculated on to the West Coast and attended and graduated from the prestigious Stanford University. He went on to get an MBA from Wharton. He had a super successful career in banking, which began in California, then on to New York and then back home to Alabama where he was one of the top executives with the old Colonial Bank in Montgomery.
Young Boozer was first elected treasurer in 2010, and served with much success. He was re-elected in 2014, serving eight years from 2011 to 2019. Due to state law, he could not run for a third consecutive term. In 2021, he returned to the office via appointment by Governor Kay Ivey. Upon completion of that term, he was elected to the position overwhelmingly in 2022. We are fortunate to have him be able to run for another term this year. He has actually made the state money as treasurer. Under Boozer, the state treasury has become self-funded.
The secretary of state race will be one of the closest contests of the year in 2026. Current State Auditor Andrew Sorrell is looking to move next door to secretary of state. Sorrell is a very conservative young man and an extremely effective one-on-one retail politician. He has crisscrossed the state nonstop and enjoys it. Andrew Sorrell is also a good family man.
He will be pitted against the brightest rising star on the Alabama GOP stage, Caroleene Dobson. Dobson is an outstanding candidate who is a Monroe County native, Harvard graduate, accomplished lawyer and quality wife and mother. She ran a sterling race for the Republican Party in the new Democratic 2nd Congressional District last year.
Youthful Derek Chen will be favored to win the open state auditor post in his first venture on the ballot, although he is not new to politics. At 28, he is the most connected person to Alabama Republican politics at that age that I have ever seen. He is a member of every major conservative business group in the state. He is the largest contributor to conservative Alabama Republican legislative candidates in the state. He is a major donor to President Trump. He started supporting Trump in 2015, when he first came down the elevator at Trump Tower in New York. Derek has stuck like glue to Trump through thick and thin and is a constant guest of Trump’s at Mar-a-Lago. My guess is that Trump will return Derek Chen’s loyalty by endorsing him in his race for state auditor. Derek has a law degree from Cumberland School of Law and an MBA from the University of Alabama. He is more than qualified to keep up with the state’s desks, chairs, computers, and pencils, which is essentially what the state auditor does.
See you next week.
