Analysis Alabama Republicans held power. Their margin for error shrank
Democrats gained across the ballot, especially in the counties that cast more than half of Alabama’s votes in Tuesday’s election.
On October 16, Alabama Republican legislative leaders stood inside Star Supermarket in Huntsville and promised to repeal the rest of the state grocery tax. State Senator Sam Givhan was there. Republican sources told APR the announcement was part of an effort to protect legislative seats in Madison and Limestone counties.
On Tuesday, Democrat Jared Sluss beat Givhan by 577 votes. Givhan had outspent him more than 21 to 1. Democrats flipped another state Senate seat and a state House seat in the Madison County area and won the Madison County sheriff’s race.
Republicans kept every statewide office on the ballot and their supermajorities in both chambers of the Legislature. But their own actions before Election Day showed they understood the risk in North Alabama. The unofficial returns show how far beyond Huntsville that risk extended.
A shift beyond the governor’s race
Tommy Tuberville beat Doug Jones 51.8 percent to 47.9 percent in Alabama’s closest governor’s race since 2002. Jones, a former U.S. senator, had statewide name recognition. The results farther down the ballot tell us more about the party’s gains.
Republican Katherine Robertson won the attorney general’s race by 10 points. Four years ago, Republican Steve Marshall won the same office by nearly 36. Across eight counties that cast more than half the state’s ballots, the result flipped. Jefferson, Madison, Mobile, Montgomery, Tuscaloosa, Shelby, Baldwin and Lee together went from a 19-point Republican margin in the 2022 attorney general’s race to a seven-point Democratic margin on Tuesday. Even in Shelby County, which Robertson carried, the Republican margin fell from 51 points to 21.
The straight-ticket numbers tell a similar story. Republicans cast 645,002 straight-ticket ballots, down slightly from 648,953 in 2022. Democrats cast 549,433, up 84 percent from 298,434. Turnout rose from 38.60 percent to 43.96 percent. Democrats also gave voters a choice in four statewide races where they had fielded nobody four years earlier, including lieutenant governor and treasurer.
The national wave helped. Republicans lost both chambers of Congress, and Alabama Democrats had a better slate than they did in 2022. Those conditions can change from one election to the next. So can the ability of either party to compete. In 88 of Alabama’s 140 legislative races, only one candidate appeared on the ballot. In Madison County, where voters had a choice, several seats Republicans had held changed hands.
In the redrawn 2nd Congressional District, The Cook Political Report estimates Donald Trump would have carried the district by 14 percentage points in 2024 under the lines used on Tuesday. Democratic U.S. Representative Shomari Figures won reelection by 7.5 points over Trump-endorsed Republican Rhett Marques.
The lesson of 2010
In 2010, Republicans took both chambers of the Alabama Legislature for the first time in 136 years. The federal bingo indictments landed a month before the election and sharpened anger at a Democratic-run Statehouse. A recession and the fight over the Affordable Care Act fed a backlash against Washington. Race was part of the backlash against Barack Obama. Exit polls put his share of Alabama’s white vote at about 10 percent in 2008, compared with 19 percent for John Kerry four years earlier. White support for Democrats had been declining before Obama, and the drop in 2008 was especially sharp.
Mike Hubbard, then the state Republican chairman, recruited candidates and raised the money to compete for legislative seats. Voters already had reasons to be angry. Republicans gave them candidates they could vote for.
Sixteen years later, an October Cygnal poll for Gray Media and Alabama Daily News found that 37.3 percent of likely voters named inflation and the cost of living as their top issue. Corruption in politics came second at 15.3 percent. The question covered politics generally. It still ought to get the attention of the people who run the Statehouse. The majority in Montgomery is now Republican.
Tuberville made his relationship with Trump central to his campaign and released a policy plan in October that addressed household costs. The grocery tax pledge addressed a concern that ranked first even among likely Republican primary voters.
The June runoff that nominated Barry Moore for Senate and John Wahl for lieutenant governor drew about one in ten registered Alabama voters. More than four times as many cast ballots in November. Republicans won both races, but the larger electorate gave them much less room to spare in places they had counted on.
In 2010, Republicans won the Statehouse by making the party in power answer for how it governed. Sixteen years later, Alabama voters still put corruption near the top of their concerns, and the cost of living ranks first. Republicans have the votes to make good on their grocery tax pledge. They also have to answer for how Montgomery works after 16 years under their control.
