Table 1

Chapter 5

Alabama: Wallace Departure Produces Republican Surge

Alabama shares many of the same political patterns as does its neighbor, Mississippi. Alabama is also a Deep South state with a high proportion of African Americans in its population (26%). Alabama whites were so adamant in maintaining their political and social system of white supremacy and racial segregation that along with Mississippi they are credited with creating a backlash in the northern United States that ushered in such historic civil rights measures as the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Immediately after the Second Reconstruction, the Democratic party as in Mississippi was able to unify whites and blacks into a biracial coalition that permitted the party to remain dominant in non-presidential elections for a time. Finally, as in Mississippi, Democratic party splits, some public dissatisfaction with political events, and some strong Republican candidates produced such important gains for the GOP that by the turn of the century political observers were wondering whether the state would lead the region into become a solid “Republican” region (Table 5-1).

One important difference between Alabama and Mississippi is the nature of the leadership of the biracial Democratic party that dominated the state immediately after the Second Reconstruction. While several racial moderates served as the chief executives of the Magnolia state, in Alabama there was one single dominant figure. Between 1962 and 1986, George Wallace or his wife served as governor in all except six years, being elected five times to the position (once Wallace ran his wife as the candidate, but she died after completing less than two years of the 4-year term). One other distinction is that while in Mississippi different governors served as “segregationists” during the turbulent 1960s, in Alabama this single dominant figure was the dominant segregationist leader. As African Americans were enfranchised after the Second Reconstruction and as Democrats needed the black vote in the general election to defeat credible GOP challengers who were emerging, Wallace underwent a dramatic transformation from being a nationally known segregationist leader to a “New South” Democrat who was courting and receiving some black vote. His appeal to whites of modest means was reflected in Alexander Lamis’ (1990: 76) chapter title on Alabama, “Alabama: Mesmerized by a ‘Poor Man’s Segregationist,” and the chapter title, “Alabama: The Wallace Freeze,” in Bass and DeVries (1977: 57) is appropriate in describing how Wallace’s eventual biracial coalition was so powerful that it prevented significant GOP gains until after he had left the political stage.

Segregationist Democrats Rule the State

Alabama, like Mississippi, is a Deep South state where whites maintained political power through numerous voting devices that disfranchised the great majority of African Americans. Indeed, these suppressive measures were so effective that as late as 1960 only 14% of voting age African Americans were registered to vote (Garrow 1978: 11). Initially, whites used intimidation and violence to regain political power in the 1874 state elections from the Republicans who controlled the Reconstruction era government. That year, at least four Alabamians were killed in the violence and forty-four wounded, and “countless others” were intimidated by whites shooting firearms (McCrary, Gray, Still, and Perry 1994: 42). The 1901 state constitution “legally” disfranchised African Americans by enacting a literacy test, poll tax, and a 2-year state residency requirement (Key 1949: 560). Reflecting the “black threat” theory that posits that whites in areas with large black concentrations are more likely to back anti-black candidates or propositions, the counties most likely to vote for the 1901 constitution were those where blacks made up strong majorities of the population (Key 1949: 545).

The Alabama poll tax was $1.50 annually, similar to other southern states, but it employed a very severe “cumulative” feature whereby people were required to pay it for every year that they had lived in the state between the ages of 21 and 45. Therefore, if a 45 year old had never voted and had lived in Alabama since he was 21 years old, he would have to pay $36, unless he fell into an exempt category such as the disabled (Key 1949: 580). Furthermore, the poll tax had to be paid at least three months before the gubernatorial primary election, with one 1901 convention delegate explaining how this provision would have a racially discriminatory impact: “the negro and the vicious element will not pay two months ahead of time” (Key 1949: 587).

White concern over rising educational levels among blacks led Alabama voters in 1946 to enact an amendment requiring that voters prove not merely literacy, but also meet each of the following requirements: be able to “understand and explain” any clause of the U.S. constitution, be employed over the previous year, and be of “good character” and “understand the duties and obligations of good citizenship” (Key 1949: 559). Public debate over this amendment illustrated the progressive-conservative split that existed in state politics at the time. Corporation lawyers and conservatives who controlled the state Democratic executive committee backed the amendment, while labor unions, blacks, Senator Lister Hill, Governor Jim Folsom, and Republicans opposed it (Key 1949: 634). After the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the amendment three years later for being racially discriminatory, Alabama voters responded by passing a watered down version of it. This 1951 amendment kept the literacy, good character, and understanding the duties of citizenship requirements, but also required that applicants for voting complete a written questionnaire that would permit the county election board to decide if the person was eligible to vote, a questionnaire used in Alabama until the mid-1960s. Election boards had “virtually unlimited discretion” to decide if someone met the requirements for voting, and they often operated in a “discriminatory fashion” (Thomas and Stewart 1988: 135).

V.O. Key (1949: 571) provides a number of informative examples from Alabama of how southern states enforced their voting rights in a racially unequal manner. Some county election boards established quotas and would accept five to ten voting applications from blacks while additional applications “would go unanswered.” Key (1949: 571) found that in Montgomery typically only African Americans who were “the cook or the butler of white citizens of standing would be registered,” while in Mobile “slowdown tactics” would be used in examining registration applications to limit the number of registered voters. All-white election boards often consisted of members lacking a high school education. In Birmingham, the election board subjected blacks to “closer questioning than whites and discouraged them by dilatory tactics”, and labor leaders accused the board of also finding a few white workingmen “unable to comprehend the constitution and the duties and obligations of citizenship” (Key 1949: 572).

As in Mississippi, after African Americans were disfranchised a factional split among whites emerged between progressives (also known as populists) and conservatives. V.O. Key (1949: 36) entitled his chapter, “Alabama: Planters, Populists, ‘Big Mules.” The rich white planters farming the rich soil in the majority black counties extending across the central portion of the state tended to ally in Democratic primaries with the “big money interests” in the coal, insurance, iron, steel, and utilities industries in Birmingham and Mobile (Key 1949: 56). These planters and “Big Mules” were politically opposed to the interests of the small farmers in the northern counties (Key 1949: 42, 43, 56). Even more noticeable than this factional split during the first half of the 20^th century was a pervasive “friends and neighbors” phenomenon. Candidates in the first Democratic primary would be strongest in their home county and those next to it. (In the old one-party South, nearly all candidates would run in the Democratic primary, so to prevent a person from being nominated with far less than 50% of the vote in this “first primary,” a “runoff” primary would typically have to be held.) These “personal factions” were so transient and temporary that a candidate’s level of support in a given county would often vary greatly from one election to the next (Key 1949: 37, 46).

The most striking example that Key provides of progressive-conservative factionalism among white Alabamians was the 1946 Democratic gubernatorial runoff between “Big Jim” (6 foot eight inches tall) Folsom and Handy Ellis. Folsom’s slogan was “The Little Man’s Best Friend,” and he traveled across Alabama with a hillbilly band “The Strawberry Pickers.” Financial contributions went into his “suds bucket,” which he promised to use to clean out the statehouse. In his victorious gubernatorial campaign, Folsom promised higher teacher salaries, better care for the aged, a road-building plan, and in a populist spirit promised to get “tough with the interests” (Key 1949: 42, all quotes). Opposing the required tax increase to fund such programs were the higher income planters and businessmen. As in Mississippi, the most conservative parts of the state were the black majority counties, where African Americans were basically disfranchised and white planters were politically dominant.

Constitutionally unable to immediately succeed himself, Folsom was elected governor once again in 1954. Fairly unique at that time in the Deep South was that Folsom was liberal on race as well as on economic issues, as he saw the impoverished of both races as having common interests. Rejecting the hysteria of whites mobilizing to oppose federally-enforced "integration," Folsom argued that blacks were "good citizens. If they had been making a living for me like they have for the Black Belt, I’d be proud of them instead of kicking them and cussing them all of the time” (Strong 1972: 449). Indeed, when a prominent African American congressman from New York City, Adam Clayton Powell, visited Alabama to speak at a black college, Governor Folsom invited him to the executive mansion where the two men “consumed a little Scotch and soda and engaged in friendly conversation,” shocking many whites who disapproved of such “race mixing” (Strong 1972: 449). When the Alabama state legislature passed a resolution in 1956 seeking to “nullify” the U.S. Supreme Court’s Brown decision requiring the racial desegregation of public schools, the constitutional lawyer in Folsom prompted him to reject the defiant resolution: “It’s just a bunch of hogwash” (Strong 1972: 450). His successors, however, would spend the next two decades obsessed with the race issue and with maintaining white supremacy in the state.

Segregationist Wallace Converts to Leader of a Dominant Biracial Party

Alexander Lamis’ (1990: 76) chapter, “Alabama: Mesmerized by a ‘Poor Man’s Segregationist’,” not only highlights one man’s political dominance of the state, but also details how that one man (George C. Wallace) helped to maintain his party’s political dominance. Early in his political career when most blacks were prevented from voting but the federal government was pushing civil rights measures, the race issue was very salient (important) to whites, so Wallace stressed his staunch backing of segregation. As African Americans won the right to vote and an emerging Republican party threatened to beat the Democrats in the general election, Wallace shifted his focus to economic issues that would benefit people of both races, a posture made believable by his humble beginnings.

George Wallace was born in a “shotgun house” where “the roof leaked incessantly,” “there was no electricity or running water,” and “the only toilet was a ramshackle privy in the backyard” (Carter 2000: 21 quotes; Lesher 1994: 24). He arrived at the University of Alabama campus “carrying a cardboard suitcase containing two shirts” and “a few changes of underwear and socks,” and worked his way through college “with a variety of part-time jobs, waiting tables at his boardinghouse in return for room and board” (Carter 2000: 46 quotes; Lesher 1994: 37). He twice won the state’s boxing championship as a bantamweight, and married a working class lady, Lurleen, whom he met when she was clerking at a dime-store (Carter 2000: 29, 52).

Wallace waged a frugal “people-to-people” campaign for the state legislature in 1946, in which he sometimes “hitched rides” or “walked the four or five miles between communities and stopped at farmhouses and fields along the way” as he met numerous constituents (Carter 2000: 74). Campaigning at church meetings and school plays, he would stress his interest in “helping farmers, the elderly, and the schools,” and greeting workers at cotton mill gates he would “tell them of his interest in the working man” (Lesher 1994: 66). As a state legislator, he was viewed as a “dangerous liberal” by many conservatives because of such actions as his service on the board of all-black Tuskegee University, and his successful advocacy of the creation of new trade schools and the provision of free college tuition for the widows and orphans of those killed and wounded World War 2 veterans, programs that benefited Alabamians of both races (Carter 2000: 76 quote; Lesher 1994: 81). A political ally of the populist, Governor Folsom, Wallace even served as his campaign manager in south Alabama during “Big Jim’s” second successful gubernatorial race in 1954 (Bass and DeVries 1977: 60-61). Elected a circuit judge in 1952, Wallace became known as the “Fighting Little Judge” for his efforts to oppose the federal government’s attacks on racial segregation (a shift of emphasis from his previous foray into racial liberalism), and for his “feisty rhetoric” and his “folksiness” (Lesher 1994: 120 quotes, 96, 140).

Wallace ran an unsuccessful race for governor in 1958, as Attorney General John Patterson, who played the race theme so heavily that Wallace was actually viewed as the racial moderate and received some black support, defeated him. Patterson had succeeded in physically shutting down the state’s NAACP chapter for eight years for allegedly failing to register as an out-of-state corporation (Permaloff and Grafton 1995: 72, 207). Wallace, in his first gubernatorial bid (and only losing race), had moderated his pledge to close any school ordered to desegregate by claiming that he had “never made a derogatory remark about one of God’s children,” that he would “treat all fairly,” and that he would preserve segregation “with dignity and respect” (Permaloff and Grafton 1995: 70). From this defeat, Wallace drew the lesson that, “I am not gong to be out-segged again” (Strong 1972: 451). True to his word, Wallace won the governorship in 1962 over more racially moderate candidates (including former governor Folsom) by denouncing an “integrating, carpet-bagging, scalawagging, race-mixing” federal judge and promising to defy federal school desegregation orders with a “stand in the schoolhouse door” (Lesher 1994: 156 quotes, 155, 160). In his inaugural address, Wallace promised a fight with federal “tyranny” as he would stand for, “Segregation now- segregation tomorrow- segregation forever” (Bass and DeVries 1977: 62).

As governor in the early to mid-1960s, Wallace is most known for his public opposition to racial integration. He stood in the schoolhouse doors to try to prevent the admission of the first two black students to the University of Alabama, forcing President Kennedy to federalize the state National Guard (Carter 2000: 150). Wallace also issued an executive order closing Tuskegee High School after it was ordered to desegregate, ordered that the state’s deposits in the bank of a racially progressive banker in that town be withdrawn, and backed the creation of private schools to avoid federal desegregation (Carter 2000: 170, 235; Permaloff and Grafton 1995:197, 198). Some political activists and observers credit Wallace’s reactionary leadership with helping to create the climate that led to such human rights abuses as the bombing of a black church in Birmingham that killed four little girls, the jailing of Martin Luther King and the use of fire hoses on his supporters, and the killing of civil rights workers (Bass and DeVries, 1977: 62-63; Permaloff and Grafton 1995: 192). Somewhat ironically given Wallace’s segregationist goals, such episodes as the police beatings of civil rights marchers in Selma, Alabama are credited with causing a backlash in northern states that led to such federal civil rights laws as the 1965 Voting Rights Act (Carter 2000: 262; Lesher 1994: 242, 348).

Wallace was so politically popular among voters (still overwhelmingly white) that constitutionally prohibited from running for reelection after one term, he ran his wife Lurleen in 1966 with the theme, “Two Governors, One Cause” (Bass and DeVries 1977: 64). After campaign speeches Lurleen would introduce George to speak as her “number-one assistant in the next administration” (Lesher 1994: 361 quote; Permaloff and Grafton 1995: 237). Wallace turned his shy wife’s political inexperience and working class roots into a campaign plus, as he denounced the national media who had “made fun of my wife… because she used to be a dime-store clerk and her daddy was a shipyard worker” and reminded campaign crowds that the voters of Alabama were “just as cultured and refined as those New York reporters and editors” (Carter 2000: 283 quote, 273; Lesher 1994: 361). Lurleen Wallace went on to an easy first primary win over Attorney General Richmond Flowers, a racial liberal who had frequently denounced Klan violence and prosecuted those accused of murdering civil rights workers (Permaloff and Grafton 1995: 234, 238).

Lurleen had pledged to continue the fight against federally ordered school desegregation, but as governor she was most known for enacting an ambitious bond measure for highway construction (Permaloff and Grafton 1995: 245, 248). She died of cancer less than two years into her term, and Lieutenant Governor Albert Brewer finished out the term. With the business community in Birmingham promoting racial moderation, Brewer turned his focus to economic development issues (Bass and DeVries 1977: 64). He proceeded to convince the legislature to enact a progressive tax package that included raising the personal and corporate income taxes, in order to increase education spending and to enact a significant teacher pay raise (Permaloff and Grafton 1995: 286).

George Wallace himself narrowly regained the governorship in 1970 by stressing race in the runoff primary campaign against Governor Brewer. He warned voters that the “black, bloc vote” threatened to gain control of government, and a Wallace campaign advertisement urged voters to save the state from “The Bloc Vote (Negroes and Their White Friends)” and the “Spotted Alliance” (Lesher 1994: 448 1^st quote; Bass and DeVries 1977: 65, other quotes). While these early Wallace elections were dominated by his playing the race card, his economic programs as governor were relatively progressive, not too surprising given his humble origins and his early alliance with Governor Big Jim Folsom. In his first term, Wallace greatly increase the number of the state’s trade schools and junior colleges, and increased funding for highways (Permaloff and Grafton 1995: 171, 179; Strong 1972: 452). In his second term, he helped to enact such pro-labor measures as improved workmen’s compensation and unemployment benefits, and sought to raise various business taxes (Bass and DeVries 1977: 65-66). Even on the issue of race, as early as 1971 Wallace claimed to support “non-discrimination in public schools” and “public accommodations open to all,” and he began greeting integrated school groups and signing photographs for them as they toured the capital (Carter 2000: 417). His 1971 inaugural address omitted the word segregation, pledging governmental action “for the weak, the poor, and the humble as well as the powerful” and asserting “Alabama belongs to us all- black and white, young and old, rich and poor alike” (Lesher 1994: 457).

By 1974 as African Americans were now voting in large numbers and as the GOP began to emerge as a credible alternative to voters (winning the 1972 presidential race in Alabama and controlling nearly half of the state’s U.S. House seats), Wallace had brought his public image on race into line with his economic orientation. Perhaps his brush with death in the assassination attempt during his 1972 bid for the Democratic presidential nomination which left him paralyzed, and his awareness that black ministers were praying for him also played some role. In any event, in 1973 Wallace crowned a black homecoming queen at the University of Alabama, and at a conference of black mayors proclaimed that, “We’re all God’s children. All God’s children are equal” (Bass and DeVries 1977: 68). The next year he visited Martin Luther King’s old church in Montgomery, where he appeared to seek forgiveness by claiming to be “misunderstood,” explaining that he had opposed school desegregation because of a “commitment to states’ rights” instead of “any racist feelings” (Carter 2000: 463). Winning the state AFL-CIO endorsement and renominated by Democrats with an estimated 25-30% of the black vote (Carter 2000: 456; Lesher 1994: 493; Bass and DeVries 1977: 68), Wallace went on to an easy reelection in 1974 (an amendment adopted in 1968 now permitted a governor to immediately run for re-election), holding the hapless GOP challenger to only 15% of the vote (Table 5-2).

Republicans in Alabama made their first real gains in the Eisenhower and Nixon presidential elections, receiving nearly half of the vote among more prosperous citizens in metropolitan counties and in more mountainous counties that had opposed secession from the Union (Strong 1972: 435-436). The GOP shocked the state in 1962 when Republican James Martin won 49% of the vote against Democratic U.S. Senator Lister Hill. During this period of white anguish over Ole Miss being forced to integrate, Goldwater-supporter James Martin campaigned by using such racial code words as “states’ rights” and “constitutional government.” Both Martin and GOP presidential candidate Goldwater carried Alabama’s Black Belt, a key addition to the normally limited GOP coalition (Strong 1972: 439-440, previous sentence’s quotes). Easily carrying Alabama, Goldwater swept in five GOP U.S. House members (no Republican congressman had been elected in Alabama since Reconstruction), though two seats were lost two years later. The Goldwater years proved a high water mark for the GOP, however. Even in 1972, when Republican President Nixon carried Alabama in a landslide, the GOP challenger to Senator John Sparkman won only 35% of the vote (Table 5-2). Republican gains were hindered by Nixon’s tacit support for conservative southern Democratic senators like Sparkman, who had backed the GOP president’s congressional programs.

The ideological inclusiveness of the “new” Democratic party that Wallace’s pragmatic philosophy had helped forge continued to dominate state politics after his temporary retirement in 1978. That year, a publicly unknown millionaire businessman and former Republican during the Nixon years, Fob James, employed an out-of-state consulting firm and launched a modern mass media campaign (Thomas and Stewart 1988: 141). James, campaigning as an “outsider” who would bring good business practices to state government, defeated “liberal” Attorney General Bill Baxley in the Democratic runoff, and then swamped Republican former probate judge Guy Hunt in November (Permaloff and Grafton 1995: 305, 1^st quote; Lamis 1990: 85 2^nd quote, 86). Wallace returned to the governorship a last time in the recession year of 1982 by winning some black support and promising to attract new jobs to Alabama. Garnering about one-third of the black vote to narrowly win the Democratic runoff against a moderate, Wallace easily defeated a Republican in the general election by stressing economic issues that Democrats nationally had emphasized since the New Deal. Wallace expressed concern for the “unemployed and hungry,” and raised class issues by blasting the GOP as people “who only have to worry about who will mow their beachfront lawns” (Lamis 1990: 90 quotes; Lesher 1994: 497). He promised to protect working class blacks and whites from the “special interests,” and blasted the persistence of “tax loopholes for the rich” (Carter 2000: 464 1^st quote, 465 2^nd quote). In his last gubernatorial term, Wallace fulfilled his campaign pledge to appoint “African Americans to all levels of state government,” and he reportedly welcomed “them into his office on numerous occasions” (Carter 2000: 465).

Continued Democratic party dominance in Alabama was also reflected in the state’s U.S. senate races. Former chief justice of the state supreme court, Howell Heflin, won the senate seat vacated by Senator John Sparkman in 1978 without GOP opposition. The same year, state senator Don Stewart won a special election to fill the last two years of the late Senator James Allen. Stewart skillfully assembled an ideologically diverse black-white coalition by combining his public reputation as a “longtime foe of the utility companies” and as a “labor-oriented liberal” with a campaign stress on his conservatism on national defense and fiscal issues (Lamis 1990: 86 quotes, 87). The one bright spot for the GOP was the temporary capture of this same senate seat in 1980 by Vietnam War POW Jeremiah Denton. Denton benefited from presidential candidate Reagan’s coattails, though the conservative Republican who became famous for championing a “teenage chastity bill,” lost his first re-election bid six years later when Reagan wasn’t on the ballot (Ehrenhalt 1985: 11-12). Denton in 1980 had also been helped by a divided Democratic party that saw incumbent Don Stewart narrowly unseated by Big Jim Folsom’s son (Lamis 1990: 87).

GOP Surges as Wallace Leaves the Stage

During the 1980s Republicans became a much more competitive minority party, as the presidency of Ronald Reagan was associated with a significant rise in Republican party identifications among voters to approach parity with Democrats (Cotter and Stovall 1988: 155). Republicans won the governorship in 1986 for the first time since Reconstruction, as Democrats were crippled by a vicious runoff campaign between “liberal” Lieutenant Governor Bill Baxley and Republican-turned-Democrat Attorney General Charlie Graddick. Graddick, a death penalty backer who boasted business and Republican support, outpolled his opponent in the runoff, but was replaced as the Democratic nominee by the state party executive committee, after being found in violation of party rules that specified that a Democratic candidate could not encourage those who had voted in the first Republican primary to cross-over and vote in the Democratic runoff primary. This gave the Democrats the public perception of being “undemocratic,” helping Republicans to elect as governor Guy Hunt, a longtime party activist who as a high school educated Amway salesman and Primitive Baptist preacher could connect with voters of modest means (Cotter and Gordon 1999: 224; Thomas and Stewart 1988: 138).

The split party outcomes of Republican Hunt’s re-election as governor in 1990 and Democratic Richard Shelby’s unseating of Senator Denton in 1986 illustrated how “ideological” issues could defeat Democratic party candidates, and how the party could still win in Alabama by defusing them. To challenge the conservative GOP governor, Democrats narrowly nominated “liberal” Paul Hubbert, executive secretary of the Alabama Education Association (AEA). Hubbert entered the general election campaign already damaged by a bitter Democratic runoff, where attorney general Don Siegelman had blasted him as a candidate of “special interests” who was too close to controversial Joe Reed, head of Alabama’s oldest black political organization, the Alabama Democratic Conference. Republican Hunt in his successful reelection bid played up his incumbency at campaign stops, while blasting the Hubbert-led AEA for endorsing “liberals” Mondale and Dukakis in the two previous presidential elections. Hunt also labeled his Democratic challenger as beholden to such “special interests” as the “trial lawyers” and the “toxic waste and gambling industries” (Cotter and Gordon 1999: 228).

Four years earlier, Alabama Democrats had been able to effective defuse the ideology issue with a more “centrist” candidate. Touting his moderate conservative voting record as a U.S. House member, Democrat Richard Shelby in 1986 was able to narrowly knock off one-term Republican Senator Denton. The more ideologically pragmatic Democrat criticized the GOP incumbent for voting to cut Social Security, and benefited from the Republican’s lack of political skills, exemplified by Denton’s remark during a hearing on spousal rape that, “Damn it, when you get married, you kind of expect you’re going to get a little sex” (Ehrenhalt 1987: 11). In 1992 Shelby with a better than 15-to-1 campaign finance advantage, was reelected with a landslide 65% of the vote to the 33% garnered by Republican businessman Richard Sellers, a challenger “largely ignored by state and national party figures” (Duncan 1993: 19 quote, 20).

The 1994 national GOP “tsunami” produced great Republican gains in Alabama. Political change over the years is evident in Table 5-1 as the names of gubernatorial and senatorial officeholders migrate over time from the left “Democratic” side of the chart to the right “Republican” side. Until Reagan’s election as president in 1980, the chart was solidly Democratic. Reagan’s victory coupled later with Wallace’s departure from the political arena in 1986 is associated with isolated GOP triumphs during the 1980s- one senator and one governor. By the mid-1990s we now see the Republican side of the chart filling up with only isolated Democratic entries in the left columns.

The year 1994 started innocently enough with a Democrat suddenly in the governor’s mansion, as lieutenant governor Jim Folsom Jr. had become governor the previous year after Hunt’s conviction for misusing inaugural funds for personal expenses. Folsom narrowly won the Democratic primary against the party’s 1990 gubernatorial loser, Hubbert, who reportedly “never endorsed Folsom by name” and “refused to utter the governor’s name” (Permaloff and Grafton 1995: 312). Folsom touted his economic development accomplishments that included attracting a Mercedes-Benz auto plant, and attracted significant black support after dropping an appeal of a court ruling ordering the Confederate battle flag to be taken down from above the state capitol dome (Cotter and Gordon 1999: 232-233). His GOP general election opponent was former Democratic governor Fob James, who as governor had had to make painful budget cuts during the national recession (http://www.archives.state.al.us/govs_list/g_james.html). The Democrat-turned-Republican James skillfully played on such conservative issues as his support for school prayer and opposition to abortion and gambling, while projecting a “down-home” speaking style that was “more redneck and proletarian than silk stocking” (Cotter and Gordon 1999: 234). With a campaign theme of, “An honest government for a change,” James was helped in reclaiming the governorship for the GOP by allegations of the governor using a gambling magnate’s plane on a family vacation and claims that the Democratic campaign allegedly made personal use of taxpayer funded pork barrel appropriations (Cotter and Gordon 1999: 235).

In what turned out to be a “double killing” days after the election, Democrats lost a U.S. senate seat as well when Senator Richard Shelby, who had been a thorn in the hide of President Clinton by opposing the President’s economic program in the Senate, switched to the GOP. Shelby’s parting shot to the formerly dominant national Democrats: “I thought there was room in the Democratic Party for a conservative Southern Democrat such as myself… But I can tell you there is not” (Cotter and Gordon 1999: 237). Now a Republican, Shelby continued to breeze to reelection, winning 63% of the vote in 1998 and 68% in 2004. Indeed, Democrats had such difficulty in finding credible candidates to challenge him that in 1998 they nominated a retired ironworker and former county commissioner who had to mortgage his pickup truck just to pay the modest qualifying fee, while in the 2004 contest the challenger raised only $4,941 to Shelby’s $6.6 million (Duncan and Nutting 1999: 5; Koszczuk and Stern 2005: 3, 1169).

Republicans in 1994 also made breakthroughs in less visible offices, ending a shutout in sub-gubernatorial statewide executive offices by winning half of them, and reaching the 30% mark of percentage of legislative seats in each chamber held by their party (Table 5-2). Republican Jeff Sessions, whose federal district nomination in 1986 had been derailed over allegations of his racially insensitive remarks, unseated a Democratic attorney general who had made a “financial mess” of his office (Cotter and Gordon 1999: 238 quote, 236). Perceived failures of performance by Democrats also led to GOP victories for auditor and agriculture commissioner, as one losing Democrat had been accused of making personal calls on state phones and the other had hired his two grandchildren for state jobs (Cotter and Gordon 1999: 238). Democratic troubles continued when one of the three victorious Democrats in sub-gubernatorial executive offices, Secretary of State Jim Bennett, decided to switch to the GOP.

Republicans continued their romp in 1996, winning the state’s second U.S. senate seat with state attorney general Jeff Sessions after Heflin’s retirement. The conservative Sessions, who backed smaller government, welfare reform, and school prayer, blasted his Democratic opponent, state senator Roger Bedford as a “liberal” who was allied with Bill Clinton and Ted Kennedy (Cotter and Gordon 1999: 241). The Republican also accused Bedford, who as state senator had opposed tort reform, of being a “lapdog of the trial lawyers” and of being dependent on labor union campaign donations (Duncan and Lawrence 1997: 6). Sessions also benefited by publicity given to his opponent’s use of his state senate position to get a water line run to a hunting lodge he used (Cotter and Gordon 1999: 241). In 2002 Sessions was easily reelected with 59% of the vote over Democratic state auditor, Susan Parker, who was outspent by over a 4-1 margin and who won only 40% of the vote (Hawkings and Nutting 2003: 5-6, 1149). Six years later Sessions increased his reelection margin to 63%, defeating state senator Vivian Figures, whose self-described racial heritage was "African-West Indian-Cajun-Cherokee Indian" (http://www.figures2008.com/bio), and who was the widow of the first African American president pro tempore of the Alabama senate (Michael Figures of the mid-1990s).

One consolation for Democrats in the closing days of the 20^th century was Lieutenant Governor Don Siegelman’s unseating of Governor Fob James in 1998. Siegelman had promised to enact a lottery to help fund education, while Governor James was hurt in the business community for opposing tort reform. James also lost some support among moderates for opposing the teaching of evolution and for playing the “race card” by stressing his primary opponent’s endorsement by Birmingham mayor, African American Richard Arrington (Stanley 2003: 89). Siegelman was soon to face his own setbacks, though, as voters rejected his lottery referendum, thanks to opposition from religious conservatives and because of general public distrust of “politicians.” He was also “dogged by allegations of corruption regarding state contracts and programs” (Cotter 2007: 85 quote, 84). With Alabama facing the worst budget deficit since the Great Depression and forced to cut education at all levels, Republicans regained the governorship in 2002 as conservative congressman Bob Riley unseated Siegelman (Associated Press 2005; Stanley 2003: 91). Riley skillfully exploited public cynicism over the corruption allegations by promising “honest change” as a “new face in state government” (Cotter 2007: 85).

As governor, Bob Riley proved to be an ideologically pragmatic chief executive, who benefited from an improving economy that produced an historic low 3% unemployment rate and from an image of organized and authoritative leadership in responding to Hurricane Katrina’s aftermath (Associated Press 2005; Montgomeryadvertiser.com 2006). Touting the creation of over 100,000 new jobs by expanding existing businesses as well as attracting new businesses to Alabama, Riley spent much of the 2006 campaign attending groundbreaking ceremonies for new businesses and being praised by mayors in the affected cities (Rawls 2006a; Reeves 2006). His ideological pragmatism was reflected in his unsuccessful effort in 2003 to close the budget gap and increase education funding by raising taxes on the rich and lowering income and property taxes for the poor, an exercise in leadership that won him a Profile in Courage award by nationally-respected Governing magazine (Gurwitt 2003). In 2006 Riley worked with Democratic legislators to raise the threshold for a family to pay state income taxes, producing a tax cut for the working poor, and was blasted by the conservative Cato Institute for failing to reign in a “big-spending Legislature” that appropriated money for such programs as public education (Rawls 2006b; quote in Rawls 2006c). Endorsed by all 18 of the state’s daily newspapers, Riley won reelection in 2006 with 57% of the vote to Democratic lieutenant governor and former two-term treasurer Lucy Baxley’s 42% (Rawls 2006d). Baxley had tried to paint herself as the “working class candidate,” backing a $1 increase in the state minimum wage (Kizzire 2006a). Republicans in 2006 also won four of the six executive offices below governor, though Democrat and former governor Jim Folsom Jr. was elected Lieutenant Governor and pledged to work for various education projects (Kizzire 2006b).

The 2010 national Republican tsunami swept over Alabama as well, as the GOP retained the governorship, reelected one of its U.S. senators, won all except one U.S. house seats, seized control of both chambers of the state legislature for the first time since Reconstruction, and swept all six non-gubernatorial statewide offices for the first time. GOP state legislator Robert Bentley won the governorship over Democratic Agriculture Commissioner Ron Sparks after stressing job creation measures and ethics reform, while Sparks had concentrated on such gambling measures as a state lottery and electronic gaming to raise funds for education and Medicaid (Kitchen 2010). Four term U.S. senator Richard Shelby easily bested his Democratic opponent, attorney William Barnes. Republicans swept all six U.S. house districts that had voted for John McCain for president two years earlier, losing only in the black majority 7th district. State legislative Republicans benefited from the millions of dollars that Governor Riley had raised for them over the previous three years, plus a voter backlash against a legislative pay raise and a corruption probe involving some Democratic lawmakers (Rawls 2010). The 2012 elections reaffirmed Republican dominance in Alabama, as Romney won 61% of the state vote, and Republicans retained all six of their U.S. house seats, restricting Democrats to one majority black district held by an African American woman. Republican Roy Moore, famous for having defied a federal judge nearly a decade earlier by refusing to remove a Ten Commandments granite monument from his court's lobby and then being removed from office by a state judicial panel, narrowly beat a Democrat for the State Supreme Court Chief Justiceship.

Throughout the post-Wallace era, Alabama Republicans during presidential campaigns have blasted the Democratic nominee as a “liberal.” State GOP chairman Emory Folmar in 1988 accused Dukakis of being a “member of the American Civil Liberties Union [ACLU], an opponent of the death penalty, an advocate of gun control,” as well as a “typical tax-spend Northeastern liberal,” who was “weak on defense” and a “soul mate of George McGovern ” (Cotter 1991: 40). Polls of Alabama voters showed that Bush did indeed enjoy big advantages over Dukakis on foreign and defense policy, on fighting crime, and on holding down taxes (Cotter 1991: 44). In 1992 Folmar, now state chair of the Bush/Quayle campaign, claimed that Clinton and Gore “talk Southern but vote another way. They come out of the mold of Dukakis, Mondale, Carter, and McGovern” (Cotter 1994: 27). Republicans in the two Bill Clinton presidential campaigns also successfully played on the “character” issue that dogged the Democrat, and Alabama polls showed Bush in 1992 advantaged on such personal characteristics as honesty, trustworthiness, and strength, and Dole in 1996 viewed by voters as more honest and dependable than the president (Cotter 1994: 31; Cotter 1997: 61). With Republicans winning every presidential election in Alabama beginning with Reagan’s in 1980, by 2000 both national parties were virtually ignoring the state. Indeed, that year Alabama’s GOP chair himself urged George Bush to go campaign in other states where the race was closer, and the state Democratic executive chair pledged to focus his efforts on getting Alabama Democrats elected (Cotter 2002: 52).

Another feature of the post-Wallace era has been important gains by African Americans in political power, particularly in the state legislature. African American lawmakers by 1995 held one-fourth of the legislature’s seats, compared to only 11% in 1980. African Americans also attained such leadership positions as president pro tempore of the senate (Michael A. Figures in 1995-1996) and speaker pro tempore of the house (Demetrius C. Newton in 1999-2010). African Americans, benefiting from the Democratic party’s continued control of both legislative chambers, also chaired their fair share of committees at the turn of the century, heading such important committees as Education in both houses and the Government Finance and Appropriations Committee in the house (Menifield, Shaffer, and Brassell 2005: 158-160).

Republicans continued their monopoly over the governorship and both of the state's U.S. senate seats in 2014 by reelecting Governor Bentley and Senator Sessions, and in 2016 by reelecting Senator Shelby. Bentley focused his campaign on the "60,000 new jobs" he had helped create, including "an Airbus assembly plant for Mobile," and he continued to fulfill his pledge of not accepting a pay check until Alabama reached full employment (Rawls 2014). Bentley's Democratic challenger was a 72-year-old former congressman who sought to overcome a 10-1 spending disadvantage by pumping over a half million dollars into his own campaign. Benefitted by a national GOP tsunami, Bentley won a landslide reelection, and incumbent Republican Senator Jeff Sessions was reelected without any Democratic opponent. Two years later, 82-year-old Senator Shelby won an easy re-election victory over Democrat Ron Crumpton, a patients' rights advocate never elected to public office.

The year of 2017 was one of turmoil for the majority Republican Party. It began with Governor Bentley appointing Luther Strange, a two term GOP state attorney general, to the U.S. senate seat made vacant by President Trump's appointment of Jeff Sessions as Attorney General. Three months later in April, Bentley resigned as governor, accepting a plea bargain agreement and avoiding likely impeachment over a sex and campaign scandal. Two-term GOP lieutenant governor Kay Ivey (who had served two terms as state treasurer previously) promptly became governor, becoming the state's second woman governor. In September, an outspoken Christian conservative, Roy Moore, twice removed from the state supreme court for violating federal court orders regarding a 10 commandments monument in his courtroom and regarding denying a same sex marriage order, led incumbent Luther Strange in the first GOP primary for the special election. Backed by conservative insurgents Steve Bannon and Sarah Palin, Moore proceeded to beat Strange in the runoff by a 55-45% margin, despite the incumbent being backed by Senate Republican leaders and President Trump. Democrats nominated Doug Jones, a former U.S. Attorney most known for successfully prosecuting two Klansmen who in 1963 had bombed a Birmingham church killing four African American girls. Despite a liberal campaign website backing pro-choice and Planned Parenthood, health care, education, and equal pay for women, Jones was helped by a detailed Washington Post story that alleged that his GOP opponent forty years earlier had dated teenage girls and even groped a couple. Presidential daughter Ivanka promptly retorted that, "There's a special place in hell for people who prey on children," and days before the December general election senior Alabama Senator Shelby confessed that he had voted for a Republican write in instead of Moore. Despite late support from President Trump, Moore went down to a 1 1/2% defeat. With heavy African American turnout and 96% of African Americans backing Jones, with 51% of Independents and 74% of moderates supporting the Democrat, Jones won despite Republicans outnumbering Democrats 43% to 37% among exit poll voters (http://www.cnn.com/election/2017/results/alabama-senate).

In 2018 Republicans regained their dominance, reelecting Governor Kay Ivey by a landslide over Tuscaloosa mayor Walt Maddox, and retaining all six of the other statewide offices. Stressing the recovered economy that produced more jobs and how she had "steadied the ship of state" and restored trust in government, Ivey projected a "trademark drawl" and a "folksy no-nonsense demeanor", while also backing gun rights and opposing abortion (Chandler 2018). Opponent Maddox had backed a lottery for college scholarships and expanding Medicaid under Obamacare.

Republicans regained Democrat Jones' Senate seat in 2020 with former Auburn football coach Tommy Tuberville's victory. Tuberville first had to knock off former Senator Jeff Sessions in the GOP primary, as Trump blasted his former attorney general as a "disaster" who had "let us all down" by not ending the Mueller Russia probe and touted Tuberville as a "winner." Highlighting his pro-life and pro-guns stances, Tuberville touted his love for Trump: "God sent Donald Trump to us. He's the only thing standing between socialism in this country" (Lyman, 2020). With Republicans outnumbering Democrats by 53% to 26% among exit poll voters, Tuberville won in a landslide.

Republicans retained their dominant status in the 2022 elections, as Governor Kay Ivey was easily re-elected with 70% of the vote, and Katie Britt kept retiring Senator Shelby's seat with a 68% victory, both landslides reflecting the GOP's 66% party identification advantage among voters (2020 exit poll). Both candidates touted responsible performance rather than extreme ideology. Governor Ivey's website touted Alabama's successful economic development, new capital investment, and good-paying jobs. Katie Britt, serving as retiring Senator Shelby's chief of staff, first had to knock off an outspoken Trump backer Congressman Mo Brooks in the primary. Campaigning to become the state's first woman U.S. Senator, Britt touted the GOP as the party of "young conservatives... young women... and working Americans" (Gillespie and Morris 2022). The defeated Democrats (both African Americans) lacked comparable statewide political experience, being a rehabilitation specialist and a pastor. Republicans retained overwhelming advantages in the state legislature, subgubernatorial statewide offices, and the U.S. House.

Are the Republicans the New Governing Party?

As in Mississippi, Republicans have made great electoral strides in recent decades. Not since 1976 have the Democrats been able to carry Alabama in a presidential race, and since 1996 Republicans have controlled both of the state's U.S. senate seats and a clear majority of the state's 7 U.S. House districts (Table 5-2). The Alabama parties differ greatly in the ideological and group composition of their congress members. (Table 5-2). The Alabama parties differ greatly in the ideological and group composition of their congress members.(Table 5-2). The Alabama parties differ greatly in the ideological and group composition of their congress members. All of the Republican members of congress in 2007 were white males boasting conservative roll call voting records, while 1 Democratic congressman was a liberal African American male and the other was a moderate white male (Koszczuk and Stern 2005: 3-20). Yet Democrats remained the dominant power in the state legislature until the 2010 GOP tsunami, holding 59% or more of the seats in each chamber. Democrats kept legislative control with a biracial coalition of lawmakers that rewarded members of both races with important legislative leadership posts. As the state entered the 21^st century, the public was evenly divided in terms of their partisan identifications, producing a relatively even partisan split in sub-gubernatorial executive offices between 1994 and 2008, and intensely competitive gubernatorial races where the aggregated popular vote percentages since 1986 was split literally 50-50 between the two parties until Riley’s reelection in 2006. While the GOP now is clearly the stronger party in statewide elections, as in Mississippi it is a little premature to brand them the state’s new majority party.

As in Mississippi, successful Democratic candidates in modern Alabama have been able to construct a biracial coalition, generally on issues with an economic tone that benefit voters of both races (Table 5-3). Don Stewart was elected senator in 1978 with black support as a pro-labor candidate who was willing to take on the utility companies, while Don Siegelman was elected governor in 1998 by backing a lottery for education, though Stewart lost his bid for a full term two years later and Siegelman was unsuccessful in enacting a lottery and lost his reelection bid. Economic issues were nevertheless potent to Alabama voters, as even George Wallace in his last gubernatorial victory played on the problem of unemployment and promised to attract more jobs to the state, and conservative Democrat Richard Shelby was elected to the Senate in 1986 by blasting the Republican incumbent’s votes to cut Social Security. Wallace in his last two elections also attracted black support, as did progressive U.S. Senator John Sparkman in his last two reelection bids, while Siegelman may have benefited from the perception of the Republican incumbent playing the race card against his primary opponent (Strong 1972: 458; Bass and DeVries 1977: 77).

Republican officeholders have been victorious after stressing their conservatism on most issues, or by blasting their Democratic opponents as being too liberal. Fob James was elected governor in 1994 as a conservative on moral issues, and Jeff Sessions was clearly a conservative on economic and moral issues in his successful 1996 election to the senate. Guy Hunt was reelected governor in 1990 by linking his Democratic opponent to liberal “special interests” and to “liberal,” national Democratic figures, and Jeff Sessions in 1996 also blasted his opponent as an ally of liberal national Democrats (Table 5-3). Conservative philosophical issues have been so potent for the GOP that some Democrats, most prominently U.S. Senator Richard Shelby, have switched parties, exasperated with the liberal nature of the national Democratic party.

Republicans have also benefited when Democrats have been divided amongst themselves, or when Democrats have made mistakes when in office. A bitter dispute over crossovers in the Democratic runoff for governor in 1986 directly led to the first GOP governor since Reconstruction, Guy Hunt. Republicans also elected a one-term U.S. Senator, Jeremiah Denton, in 1980 after the incumbent Democrat was unseated in his own primary. Fob James was elected governor in 1994 after Democrat Jim Folsom Jr. was tarred with an image of “corruption” over misuse of a plane and of pork barrel, while Sessions was elected Senator in 1996 after a story broke about his Democratic opponent’s use of his position to have a water line run to a hunting lodge he used. Democrats won a temporarily victory from the “corruption” issue when Republican Hunt resigned after a conviction for misuse of inauguration money, but the Democratic lieutenant governor who succeeded to the governorship lost his own bid for election as chief executive, and the Democratic Attorney General who had pursued Hunt’s improprieties was himself unseat by a Republican challenger, Jeff Sessions (Cotter and Gordon 1999: 231, 237).

Both parties have been able to elect some candidates who have possessed personal attributes that connected with average voters. George Wallace’s humble background was evident in his campaigns, while Senator James Allen, who had previously served as Wallace’s lieutenant governor, pressed the flesh by visiting each county during his campaigns (Lamis 1990: 79; Bass and DeVries 1977: 75). The first GOP governor since Reconstruction, Guy Hunt, was a Primitive Baptist preacher and high school educated Amway salesman, while Democrat-turned-Republican Fob James was elected governor in 1994 with a down-home speaking style that one did not expect from a rich businessman. Republicans also elected a “war hero” senator in 1980, Jeremiah Denton, a Vietnam POW.

In short, in the modern era both parties are very evenly divided in terms of the long-term force of party identification, therefore short-term forces such as candidates and issues determine election outcomes. George Wallace was able to help maintain Democratic dominance of state politics before 1986 by attracting economic liberals and social conservatives to his cause. Whereas today Republican candidates seldom miss the opportunity to brand their Democratic opponents as “liberals” who are allied with “Teddy Kennedy,” it was impossible for any Republican to convince the average Alabamian that the man who had stood in the schoolhouse door to fight integration or who had joked about running down any Vietnam War protester who laid down in front of his motorcade was a covert “liberal.” Today, after Wallace’s departure from the political scene, Republicans appear to be benefited by their image of conservatism on social and defense issues. Pat Cotter’s statewide polls clearly show that most Alabamians prefer the GOP when it comes to maintaining “traditional values,” fighting crime, and providing for a “strong defense” (Cotter and Gordon 1999: 244). Republicans have also benefited from the short-term force of public dissatisfaction, generated by the perceived corruption or poor performance of Democratic officeholders.

One advantage that Alabama Democrats have historically held over Republicans is their greater willingness to pragmatically pursue ideologically diverse policies when in office, rather than hewing to an ideologically inflexible course of action. In addition to being a segregationist when such a stance was popular among the voting “white” electorate, Governor George Wallace increased funding for highways and colleges, and later backed programs popular with labor union members. Democrat governors Fob James and Don Siegelman both preferred cutting the state budget to raising taxes (Table 5-4). U.S. Senators John Sparkman and Howell Heflin both maintained “moderately” conservative roll call records, with Sparkman backing education, health, and housing programs as an old New Deal populist, and Heflin promoting southern agricultural products and torpedoing a group seeking a patent for a Confederate design (Bass and DeVries 1977: 58; Duncan and Lawrence 1995: 3-4; Barone, Ujifusa, and Matthews 1977: 4). Indeed, Senator James Allen had been so conservative that he was viewed as the leader of the dwindling number of conservative southern Democrats (Barone, Ujifusa, and Matthews 1977: 3, 5). Unfortunately, Senator Richard Shelby’s switch to the GOP suggests that many Alabamians increasingly perceive the national Democratic party as unsympathetic to southerners failing to toe the partisan, liberal line. Prior to his switch, Shelby maintained a similar moderately conservative voting record, mixing support for civil rights measures with visible opposition to President Clinton’s economic program (Duncan and Lawrence 1995: 6-7).

Republican officeholders have maintained a more consistently conservative record. GOP Senators Denton and Sessions were both pretty solidly conservative, rated by ideological pressure groups (Americans for Democratic Action and American Conservative Union) as voting over 80% of the time for the conservative or against the liberal position on roll call measures (Ehrenhalt 1985: 12; Koszczuk and Stern 2005: 6). In addition, Senator Shelby’s record evolved after he switched to the GOP, as he became even more conservative than when he was a Democrat (Duncan and Lawrence 1995: 8; Koszczuk and Stern 2005: 4). As governors, Republican Guy Hunt was most known for his evangelical preaching, his anti-crime legislation, and his curbing of civil liability lawsuits, while Fob James became famous for backing Chief Justice of the State Supreme Court Roy Moore’s publicly reciting prayers in his courtroom and displaying the Ten Commandments (Cotter and Gordon 1999: 225, 247). But as with the case of Mississippi’s Republican Senators and governors, Alabama Republicans have shown some ability to govern by pragmatically pursuing programs that benefit a wide range of constituents. Senator Shelby has striven to bring home the federal bacon and to support consumer protection programs, while Senator Sessions works to protect the state’s military bases (Koszczuk and Stern 2005: 3-4, 6). Governor Riley has not only been viewed as a “leader” in coping with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, but confounded political analysts by seeking an historic tax increase that would help education and the poor, winning Governing magazine’s “Profile in Courage” despite having his program rejected at the polls (Associated Press 2005: 3B).

The willingness of a party and its candidates to be ideologically pragmatic may be the key to whether Republicans become the true governing party in Alabama, or whether Democrats can stage a political comeback. Despite the pragmatism of officeholders of both parties, the political environment that those officeholders are embedded in may create problems for both parties. Over the decade of the 1990s, the activists of both parties in Alabama have become more ideologically extreme. Democratic activists have moved from an essentially middle-of-the-road posture to a slightly left-of-center position, while Republicans have moved from a moderate conservative position to an even more conservative posture (Cotter, Fisher, and Fuller 2003: 28). As the political parties in the state increasingly polarize, as have the two national parties since the days of Newt Gingrich’s Speakership of the U.S. House of Representatives, it becomes more difficult to foretell the outcome of the battle for Alabamians hearts and minds.

Table 5-1

Governors and U.S. Senators and Their Parties in Modern Alabama

	Democrats			Republicans
	Governors	Senators	Senators	Governors	Senators	Senators
1970	Wallace*	Sparkman	Allen
1972	Wallace	Sparkman*	Allen
1974	Wallace*	Sparkman	Allen*
1976	Wallace	Sparkman	Allen
1978	James*	Heflin*	Stewart+
1980	James	Heflin				Denton*
1982	Wallace*	Heflin				Denton
1984	Wallace	Heflin*				Denton
1986		Heflin	Shelby*	Hunt*
1988		Heflin	Shelby	Hunt
1990		Heflin*	Shelby	Hunt*
1992		Heflin	Shelby*	Hunt
1993	Folsom+	Heflin	Shelby
1994		Heflin		James*		Shelby+
1996				James	Sessions*	Shelby
1998	Siegelman*				Sessions	Shelby*
2000	Siegelman				Sessions	Shelby
2002				Riley*	Sessions*	Shelby
2004				Riley	Sessions	Shelby*
2006				Riley*	Sessions	Shelby
2008				Riley	Sessions*	Shelby
2010				Bentley*	Sessions	Shelby*
2012				Bentley	Sessions	Shelby
2014				Bentley*	Sessions*	Shelby
2016				Ivey+	Strange+	Shelby*
2018		Jones+		Ivey*		Shelby
2020				Ivey	Tuberville*	Shelby
2022				Ivey*	Tuberville	Britt*

Note: Cell entries indicate the governors and U.S. Senators elected in or serving during the years listed at the left.

* Indicates that the officeholder was elected in that year.

+ Stewart was elected in 1978 in a special election after Allen’s death.

+ Folsom became governor in 1993 after Hunt’s legal conviction.

+ Shelby switched parties after the 1994 elections.

+ Kay Ivey became governor after Bentley resigned in April 2017.

+ Luther Strange was appointed U.S. Senator after Sessions was appointed U.S. Attorney General.

+ Doug Jones won the 2017 Special Election.

Table 5-2. Republican Growth in Alabama

Year of Election

Pres.

Vote

(% Rep of 2 pty.)

U.S. Senate Seats* (% Rep of 2 pty.)

Gov. Pty.*

(% Rep of 2 pty.)

Party Ident(% Rep of 2 pty.)

U.S. House Seats (% Rep)

State Senate Seats (% Rep of 2 pty)

State House Seats (% Rep of 2 pty)

Sub-Gov. Office (% Rep)

1970

D-0

1972

0 (35)

Dem

1974

0 (0)

D-15

1976

Dem

1978

0(0/44)+

D-26

1980

50 (52)

Dem

1982

D-40

1984

50 (36)

Dem

1986

0 (50)

R-56

1988

Rep

1990

0 (39)

R-52

1992

0 (34)

D**

1994

50*

R-50

1996

100 (53)

Rep

67*

1998

100 (63)

D-42

2000

100

Dem

48++

2002

100 (60)

R-50

49++

2004

100 (68)

Rep

2006

100

R-58

2008

100 (63)

Rep

2010

100 (65)

R-58

100

2012

100

Rep

100

2014

100 (100)

R-64

100

2016

100 (64)

Rep

100

2018

R-60

100

2020

100 (60)

Rep

66+++

100

2022

100 (68)

R-70

100

+ The second value in parentheses reflects a special election.

++ Combines two polls conducted in adjacent odd-numbered years.

+++ Fox poll, reported in Buchanan and Kapeluck, The 2020 Presidential Election in the South, p. 11.

* Democratic senator Richard Shelby switched parties after the 1994 elections, as did a Democratic secretary of state.

** Democratic lieutenant governor Jim Folsom succeeds in 1993 after Hunt=s resignation.

Note: NA indicates not available or no election held.

Source: The Almanac of American Politics, 1972-1984; CQ’s Politics in America, 1986-2006; Alabama Secretary of State website for all information except party identification and sub-gubernatorial offices. These data drawn from: Wright, Erikson, and McIver (1985), Cotter and Gordon (1999), Cotter (2002), Stanley (2003), Cotter (2007), communication from Professor Patrick R. Cotter, Jones (2017), Jones (2011), and Bullock (2010, 2014, 2018)

Table 5-3

Factors Affecting Elections of Alabama Governors and U.S. Senators

Officeholder (party-year 1^st, imp. elections)	Issues	Candidate Attributes	Party/Campaign Factors	Performance Factors
Governors
G. Wallace (D- 1962, 1970, 1974)	Segregationist/ race card/ black outreach	“poor boy”//	//labor backing	Legislator-judge//
Fob James (D-1978)		Rich businessman	Nixon Dem, media camp.
G. Wallace (D-1982)	Unemployment, jobs		Courts blacks, anti-“rich GOP”
Guy Hunt (R-1986, ‘90)	/anti-liberal national Dems	Minister, hi. sch. educated	GOP activist, Dems. divided	/Dem. special interests
Jim Folsom Jr. (D-1993)		Dad governor	No election, succession	Lieut. gov.
Fob James (R-1994)	Conservative moral issues	Down-home style	Divisive Dem. primary	Corruption-plane and pork
Don Siegelman (D-1998)	Educ. Lottery, GOP anti-bus.-anti-evolution		Rep plays race-lib. Dem card
Bob Riley (R-2002, ‘06)	Cuts hurt gov/ pragmatic Rep.	New face/		Corruption/ more jobs
Robert Bentley (R-2010, 2014)	Jobs & ethics focus helps/job creation		/10-1 GOP funding advantage	Rep st legislator, passed jobs bill/attracted jobs, toured tornado damages
Kay Ivey (R-2018,2022)	Jobs created, restored trust/	GOP folksy, drawl	/2-1 GOP party id edge	/Economic development success
Senators
John Sparkman (D-1946, ‘72)	New Deal populist/		/Black support	Congressman/ Seniority-pork
James Allen (D-1968)		“Greet” visits each county	Wallace ally
Howell Heflin (D-1978)			No GOP opponent	State sup. ct. chief justice
Don Stewart (D-1978)	Utility foe, pro-labor, fiscal-defense conser.		Seeks, gets black support
J. Denton (R-1980)		Vietnam POW	Divided Dems., Reagan coattails
Richard Shelby (D-86)	Conser. Dem., Soc. Security	Rep blunt, no pol. skills
Richard Shelby (R-94)	“conservative southerner”		No election, party switch
Jeff Sessions (R-1996,'02)	Conservative, Anti-liberal nat’l Dems		/big spending advantage	Atty. Gen., Dem corrupt.
Doug Jones (D-2017)	Dem pro-choice, education, health care	Rep very conservative	Rep alleged child molester	Dem civil rights attorney.
Tommy Tuberville (R-2020)	Conservative Rep beats liberal Dem	Rep football coach	Rep loves Trump, 2-1 GOP party Id edge	Dem rebuilt state Dem org
Katie Britt (R-2022)		Rep young woman	2-1 GOP party Id edge	Rep Senator's Chief of Staff

Table 5-4

Programs of Alabama Governors and U.S. Senators

Officeholder (party-year 1^st elected)	Progressive Policies	Neutral Policies	Conservative Policies
Governors
George Wallace (D-1962, ’70, ’74, ‘82)	Roads-colleges $/ Pro-labor, bus. tax// Appoints blacks		Early segregationist///
Fob James (D-1978)			Recession, budget cuts
Guy Hunt (R-1986)		Econ. Develop.	Anti-crime leg., civil liability curb
Jim Folsom Jr. (D-1993)	Confederate flag removed	Auto plant attracted
Fob James (R-1994)			Backs court prayers, 10 commandments
Don Siegelman (D-1998)	Lottery fails		Cuts education $
Bob Riley (R-2002)	Tax increase fails	Economic boom, hurricane “leader”
Robert Bentley (R-2010)		Attracted jobs, tours tornado damaged areas
Senators
John Sparkman (D-1946)	Pro-education, health, housing		Mod. conservative
James Allen (D-1968)			Conservative, conser. leader
Howell Heflin (D-1978)	Anti-Confederacy patent	Pro-South agriculture	Mod. conservative
Don Stewart (D-1978)
Jeremiah Denton (R-1980)			Conservative, teen chastity
Richard Shelby (D-1986)	Pro-civil rights		Mod. Conservative, anti-Clinton econ.
Richard Shelby (R-1994)	Consumer protection	Delivers federal money	Conservative
Jeff Sessions (R-1996)		Protects state military bases	Consistent conservative

Segregationist Wallace Converts to Leader of a Dominant Biracial Party

Are the Republicans the New Governing Party?

Governors

Senators

John Sparkman (D-1946, ‘72)

Senators

John Sparkman

(D-1946)