Alabama

Republican Barry Moore won the Senate race by 9.5 points over Democrat Everett Wess, keeping the seat in Republican hands. The governor’s race was closer: Tommy Tuberville beat Democrat Doug Jones, 51.8% to 47.9%. Jones conceded the next day and called it the state’s closest race for governor since 2002.¹ Republicans won all eight other statewide offices in our count, and the U.S. House delegation stayed at five Republicans and two Democrats. The closest House race was in the Fifth District, where Republican Dale W. Strong won by 6.5 points in a district Donald Trump carried by 28.8.

Set against the 2024 presidential vote, the Senate race moved 21.1 points toward the Democrats, from R+30.6 to R+9.5. Most of the change came from one side. Wess drew 98 votes for every 100 Kamala Harris won here; Moore drew 63 for every 100 of Trump’s. The votes cast came to 75% of the 2024 presidential total and 119% of the 2022 midterm’s. Bill Britt, editor-in-chief of Alabama Political Reporter, put turnout at 43.96 percent, up from 38.60 percent in 2022, and counted 84 percent more straight-ticket Democratic ballots than in 2022.²

Every region moved, and the big metro areas moved across the line. The Birmingham metro area, which cast 24% of the state’s 2024 vote, went furthest: 23.1 points, from R+19.9 to D+3.2. The Huntsville and Mobile areas, both of which Trump carried by 16.4 points, finished at D+3.7 and D+4.0, and the Montgomery area went from R+3.1 to D+16.8. The Daphne metro area moved least, 13.8 points, and finished at R+44.4. The small towns and rural counties, 22% of the vote, went from R+50.0 to R+31.5.

Of the six counties that voted for Trump in 2024 and for Wess this year, Madison County, in the Huntsville metro area, is the largest. It went from R+9.0 to D+9.9 on 159,340 votes. The change reached the Legislature there. Both state Senate seats the Democrats gained are in districts largely within Madison County: Rudolph Valentino Drake won the open District 2 with 55.9%, and Jared Sluss defeated Republican Sen. Sam Givhan in District 7 by fewer than 600 votes in unofficial results, Alabama Political Reporter reported.³ Talladega County had the widest swing on our list, 24.4 points, and still voted Republican, at R+9.4. Tuscaloosa County moved nearly as far and crossed over, to D+3.8. Jefferson County, which cast the most votes of any county, went from D+10.4 to D+31.0. No county moved toward the Republicans.

Republicans keep the governorship and both chambers, with fewer seats in each. In our count the state Senate went from 27 Republicans and 8 Democrats to 24 Republicans, 10 Democrats and one independent, and the House from 76 Republicans to 74, against 31 Democrats. The losses do not touch the party’s hold on legislation. Under Article V, Section 125 of the state constitution a veto is overridden by a majority of the elected membership of each chamber, 53 votes in the House and 18 in the Senate, Alabama Political Reporter noted, and no supermajority is required.⁴

The people who draw the maps come from the same party as before. The Legislature draws both the congressional and the legislative maps and the governor may veto them, Ballotpedia says.^{5, 6} The unofficial returns come from the office of the secretary of state, Wes Allen, and Republican Caroleene Dobson won this year’s race for that office.^{7, 8}

Before the vote, on October 16, Republican legislative leaders stood outside a Huntsville supermarket and promised to repeal the rest of the state’s grocery tax, and Bill Britt wrote afterward that they have the votes to do it.² Senate Republicans elected April Weaver majority leader, the first woman to hold the post, and House Republicans nominated Speaker Nathaniel Ledbetter for a second term.^{9, 10}

A constitutional amendment proposed by the Legislature becomes part of the Alabama constitution if a simple majority of those voting approve it, the Alabama Law Institute’s election handbook says.¹¹ All four on the ballot cleared that in unofficial returns, Alabama Political Reporter reported.¹² The narrowest was Amendment 2, at 50.9% yes, which lets neighboring county school systems merge voluntarily; it failed in 30 of the 67 counties. Amendment 1, at 65.4%, requires a special election when the lieutenant governor’s office falls vacant in the first two years of a term and more than 60 days before the next general election, and lets the Legislature set the pay of the lieutenant governor and its own leaders. Amendment 3, at 62.6%, requires local school boards to adopt policies on daily recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance and on student-led prayer, and Amendment 4, at 58.6%, requires public schools to play or perform the first stanza of “The Star-Spangled Banner” at least once a week.¹²

A seat on the state Supreme Court stayed Republican. Republican Greg Shaw, whom Ballotpedia lists as the incumbent, won Place 8 over Democrat AshLeigh Meyer Dunham; Alabama Political Reporter’s tally of unofficial returns had him at 54.6 percent, and WBHM’s results table showed a wider margin.^{13, 14, 15} In Madison County, Democrat Brett Jones defeated Republican Sheriff Kevin Turner, 84,068 votes to 74,639 in unofficial returns, and Democrat Allison Montgomery won House District 25, which takes in parts of Madison and Limestone counties, over Republican Rep. Phillip Rigsby.¹⁶

Republicans kept all 15 of the seats they held in our count, from the Senate seat to the Public Service Commission. Their narrowest wins were the governorship, by 3.9 points, and the Fifth Congressional District. Of 67 counties, 49 voted Republican in the Senate race. In the Legislature, Ledbetter wrote that “the Alabama House GOP had won 20 of its 22 races” and had kept all five seats left open by departing Republican members.¹⁷ Many seats were never contested: in 88 of the 140 legislative races only one candidate was on the ballot, Bill Britt wrote.²

Katie Boyd Britt’s Senate seat will be on the ballot in 2028, in a state that voted Republican by 30.6 points for president in 2024 and by 9.5 in this year’s Senate race. The governor’s office will not be on that ballot. The Alabama Law Institute’s table of offices gives the governor a four-year term and a limit of two.¹⁸ The House meets on January 12 for its organizational session and votes then on its speaker.¹⁰

One state Senate seat is headed to a recount. In District 10, which covers Etowah and Cherokee counties and part of DeKalb County, independent Jesse Battles finished the unofficial Election Day count 84 votes ahead of Republican Sen. Andrew Jones, and the lead later narrowed to 74 or 72. Battles took the oath of office on November 10. The results were to be canvassed on November 13. Under state law, Alabama Political Reporter and ABC 33/40 reported, a margin that close triggers an automatic recount unless the trailing candidate waives it, and Jones said he was waiting for the recount.^{19, 20} If Battles sits with the Republicans, their caucus would number 25, Alabama Political Reporter wrote.³