Opinion Alabama voters took a big step towards better government last week

Welcome to the party. 

A curious thing happened last Tuesday in Alabama—a whole bunch of people voted a straight Democratic ticket. And I mean a whole, whole bunch more than usual. 

In 2022, about 300,000 Alabama voters submitted a ballot with the little bubble for the Alabama Democratic Party filled in. A week ago, about 550,000 voters did that. 

Now, I’m not much for math, but I do think that’s about a quarter-million more votes for the Dems from top to bottom. 

Republican straight ticket ballots declined slightly—by about 4,000 or so. That means that Republicans’ advantage in straight-ticket voting went from more than 350,000 ballots in 2022 to less than 100,000 this year. 

In addition, a whole bunch of people also voted for more Democrats up and down the ballot. In some places, the numbers were staggering. Like the 40-point swing in what used to be reliably conservative Limestone County. Or how about Conecuh County casting more ballots for Doug Jones? Or Madison County being full-in for the Democrats, including electing the state’s first transgender lawmaker and a gay sheriff? 

That is what we call a seismic shift in voting. 

Now, let’s also be realistic here: A lot of that had to do with national politics and the economy. Donald Trump is wholly unpopular everywhere, including in Alabama, and that cost Republicans dearly—especially the ones dumb enough to stand on a stage with him and pretend everything was fine three weeks before the election. 

But let’s also be brutally honest about something else: Alabama Republicans failed miserably. 

They failed on data centers. They failed on affordability. They failed on Flock cameras. They failed on basic political messaging. 

And voters rejected them. Even in places they won, they had to fight fights they never imagined they would be in. 

That is a reality that Democrats can build on, and that Alabama voters should take advantage of. Especially those of us who only want a responsive, responsible government that takes care of the poor and disabled, gives opportunity to those who work for it, provides a quality public education to all children and fights public corruption. 

Because the way to get to all of that is through a viable two-party system that forces compromise and bipartisan solutions. That is the goal, because it is the only way in which average Alabamians have a true say in what goes on. 

I mean, just look at what has already happened. 

The very moment Republicans thought they were in trouble in Madison County, they mobilized a press conference with the entire legislative leadership and all Madison lawmakers and promised to cut the grocery tax for good. Something they insisted just a few months ago couldn’t be done because there was no funding to replace it. 

There was plenty of money to build a couple billion-dollar prisons, but no money to save on your grocery bills … until it looked like they were going to lose at the polls. 

Speaking of those prisons, all of a sudden there’s a realization that there might be corruption in the ever-ballooning costs and that maybe we should monitor that stuff a little better. And somehow, the wastewater situation in the Black Belt found its way into the governor-elect’s victory speech, as one of his top priorities. 

Speaking of Tommy Tuberville, in that speech and elsewhere, he’s signaled numerous times that he’s very open to working with Democrats on a variety of issues that could be very, very popular—both with Dems and with the average working Alabamian. Tuberville also acknowledged in his victory speech that a lot of people didn’t vote for him, and that he planned to be a governor for all people. 

Let’s hold him to that. Let’s find out what he wants to do and where we all agree, and let’s get that stuff done. 

Because something tells me that Tuberville and his team, if they’re serious about cleaning up Montgomery and cutting government and consolidating agencies and eliminating waste, are going to run into a LOT of resistance. And quite a bit of it will come from within his party, which has controlled the entirety of state government for at least 15 years now and staffed all of those various agencies. 

Democrats, it seems, have an opportunity there to assist in a process that could revamp state government, making it leaner and possibly more able to assist those who so desperately need it. I’ve heard the fears of “DOGE for Alabama,” and those fears should not be dismissed, but neither should an opportunity to help shape the process and ensure that necessary employees and necessary services aren’t part of any cuts. 

Look, all of us know that there is waste in state government and a lot of it. We differ on how to root out that waste and what to do with the savings once we do. So, let’s do what we agree on and compromise on the rest. 

And then do that everywhere. 

No one is expecting things to be sunshine and rainbows every day, or that there won’t be ugly fights over important issues. Those are supposed to be there. That’s how we get to the compromise. That’s how we get to the middle ground, where everyone is a little happy and everyone is a lot mad. The best, most successful states in America have that sort of government. 

Alabama took a big step towards that last Tuesday.