The Alabama Republican Party is the state affiliate of the
Republican Party in
Alabama
Alabama ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern and Deep South, Deep Southern regions of the United States. It borders Tennessee to the north, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gu ...
. It has been the dominant political party in Alabama since the late 20th century. The state party is governed by the Alabama Republican Executive Committee. The committee usually meets twice a year. As of the February 23, 2019 meeting in
Birmingham
Birmingham ( ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands (county), West Midlands, within the wider West Midlands (region), West Midlands region, in England. It is the Lis ...
, the committee is composed of 463 members. Most of the committee's members are elected in district elections across Alabama. The district members are elected in the Republican Primary once every four years, with the most recent election for the committee having been on June 5, 2018. The new committee takes office following the general election in
November 2018. In addition, all 67 county GOP chairmen have automatic seats as voting members. The state chairman can appoint 10 members. Each county committee can appoint bonus members (maximum of 5 per county) based on a formula that theoretically could add 312 seats, although that formula currently calls for only about 50 seats.
The Alabama Republican Executive Committee has several important functions. Every two years the committee elects the state chairman, vice chairmen, the secretary and the treasurer as well as other members of a steering committee. Together, they have responsibility for administering the day-to-day operations of the party. The committee also sets election rules for the statewide Republican primary and has oversight responsibilities for the 67 county parties. The committee also elects The national committeeman (currently Paul Reynolds, since 2008) and national committeewoman (currently Vicki A. Drummond, since 2012) to serve on the
Republican National Committee
The Republican National Committee (RNC) is the primary committee of the Republican Party of the United States. Its members are chosen by the state delegations at the national convention every four years. It is responsible for developing and pr ...
from Alabama. In addition, Vicki Drummond serves as the secretary of the Republican National Committee. Once every four years the committee selects the GOP slate for U.S. presidential electors and chooses alternate delegates to the
GOP National Convention.
History
The Republicans held their first statewide convention on June 4, 1867, and John Keffer, a
Freedmen's Bureau
The Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, usually referred to as simply the Freedmen's Bureau, was a U.S. government agency of early post American Civil War Reconstruction, assisting freedmen (i.e., former enslaved people) in the ...
agent, was made the first party's first chair. The party's entire state and congressional slate in the 1868 election was white.
The founding of the Alabama GOP (1854–1867)
When the Republican Party was first organized in 1854 as an anti-slavery party, it did not compete in southern states such as Alabama. In its first three presidential elections (including
1864
Events
January
* January 13 – American songwriter Stephen Foster ("Oh! Susanna", "Old Folks at Home") dies aged 37 in New York City, leaving a scrap of paper reading "Dear friends and gentle hearts". His parlor song "Beautiful Dream ...
, in which Alabama did not participate due to the Civil War), the party did not even distribute ballots in Alabama for its presidential candidate. (At the time, ballots were not
printed by the government, but were distributed by parties for their supporters to drop into ballot boxes). After the Civil War and following Alabama's readmission to the union in 1868, Alabama was a Republican dominated state for much of the Reconstruction period due to a combination of factors including its support from north Alabama
unionists, poor white farmers who had never owned slaves, and the newly enfranchised black voters. Republican
Ulysses S. Grant
Ulysses S. Grant (born Hiram Ulysses Grant; April 27, 1822July 23, 1885) was the 18th president of the United States, serving from 1869 to 1877. In 1865, as Commanding General of the United States Army, commanding general, Grant led the Uni ...
carried the state in both the 1868 and 1872 presidential elections.
One of the organizations that became the initial Alabama GOP, the
Union League, first came into north Alabama in 1863 as counties fell back under Union control during The Civil War. In early 1867, local Republicans gathered in several different meetings around the state. The first was in
Moulton, on January 8 and 9 in
Lawrence County, then March meetings in both Huntsville and Decatur, a gathering on March 25 in
Montgomery, and then May 1 in Mobile, all for the purpose of organizing an early summer state convention to create a state Republican Party. In a simultaneous meeting with the
Union League, the Republican Party of Alabama was initially organized on June 4–5, 1867. That first state convention was held in the capital city of Montgomery in the chambers of the Alabama House of Representatives. That convention was called the Union Republican Convention and consisted of 150 delegates, of whom 100 were black. Alabama Governor
Robert M. Patton spoke to the convention. Francis W. Sykes of Lawrence County was elected as chairman pro tempore, and Judge
William Hugh Smith of
Randolph County was named permanent chairman of the convention. The convention's delegates were mostly from two groups, the
Freedmen's Bureau
The Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, usually referred to as simply the Freedmen's Bureau, was a U.S. government agency of early post American Civil War Reconstruction, assisting freedmen (i.e., former enslaved people) in the ...
(which included and/or represented most of Alabama's black citizens) and the
Union League which represented about the 1/3 of north Alabama's white citizens who had remained as
loyalists
Loyalism, in the United Kingdom, its overseas territories and its former colonies, refers to the allegiance to the British crown or the United Kingdom. In North America, the most common usage of the term refers to loyalty to the British Cr ...
in the Civil War or had otherwise opposed secession in 1861.
The convention adopted what was considered a liberal platform for the time including "equal rights for all men without distinction of color." The convention also endorsed the platform of the National Republican Party and supported free public education for all Alabamians. The convention established the first State Republican Executive Committee of 24 members. It included 12 prominent native Alabamians whom had mostly been
unionists. The other members included three carpetbaggers, five
African-Americans
African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from any of the Black racial groups of Africa. ...
, and four otherwise unaffiliated and unidentified individuals.
Early history (1868–1890)
In 1868,
William Hugh Smith was elected to a single two-year term as the state's first Republican governor. That same year saw Republican
Andrew Applegate elected as the first-ever lieutenant governor of Alabama under the state's newly adopted constitution of 1867. That first post Civil War legislature under the new constitution was elected in February, 1868, with a 100-member House of Representatives (two-year terms) composed of 97 Republicans and 3 Democrats. The State Senate (four-year terms) was even more lopsided, with a single Democrat to its 32 Republicans.
The 1868 legislature also included 27 Black Republicans, the first minority members in Alabama history. All but one were members of the House of Representatives. That same year
Benjamin F. Royal (1868–1875) of Bullock County became the first black state senator in Alabama history.
That Republican-controlled legislature passed a resolution on November 24, 1869, approving the
15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guaranteeing black men the right to vote in Alabama. Governor Smith was defeated for re-election in 1870, garnering 49.5% of the vote and losing by a margin of just 1,439 votes. Although the Senate was not up for re-election that year, Democrats retook the House with 57 seats to the Republicans 38 seats, of which 19 were African-American Republicans.
After Republicans spent a single term out of the governor's office,
David P. Lewis was elected as the state's second GOP governor, winning 89,020 to 78,524 over his Democratic opponent. He served from 1872 to 1874.
His GOP lieutenant governor was
Alexander McKinstry.
During Governor Lewis' term, disputed election results produced two competing legislatures, one with a Democratic majority and the other a Republican majority. After this dispute was ultimately settled, Republicans had a 2-seat majority in the House and Democrats a 1-seat majority in the Senate. Again, this 1872 legislature included 24 African-American Republican members with 5 being in the Senate.
The 1874 legislature would see only 13 Republican Senators and House membership at 40. However, this legislature would hit a high-water mark for minority representation with 33 African-American Republicans. The 1876 election would result in 18 members (7 of which were African-American) being elected to the House and only 4 Republicans to the Senate. Republicans would be reduced to just 8 members in the House in the 1878 election. Following the 1880 election Republicans held only a single seat in the Alabama House with the election of Benjamin M. Long from
Walker County.
In fact,
Walker County had a strong Republican Party for much of the remainder of the 19th century.
Republican representation in the legislature and other public offices had declined rapidly after the 1875 Constitution was adopted. That document began the process of restricting black voter participation and expanding all forms of Jim Crow laws. Further orchestrated efforts at voter intimidation, lynchings, vote fraud, and the inability of differing Republican factions to work together all doomed the party to long-term failure. After the 1878 election no black, and few Republicans, would be elected to the legislature again until the 1970s.
During this same Reconstruction period three African-American Republicans were elected to the United States Congress from Alabama. They were
Benjamin Turner (42nd Congress),
James T. Rapier (43rd Congress) and
Jeremiah Haralson (44th Congress). However, the first Republican Congressmen from Alabama were elected in 1868. They were
Charles W. Buckley (40th and 41st Congress'),
Francis W. Kellogg,
Benjamin W. Norris,
Charles W. Pierce,
John B. Callis, and
Thomas Haughey who would be assassinated in Alabama while giving a speech. The first Republican Senators from Alabama were
Willard Warner
Willard Warner (September 4, 1826 – November 23, 1906) was a brevet brigadier general in the Union Army during the American Civil War. He was a U.S. senator from the state of Alabama after the war.
Early life and career
Warner was born in ...
(1868–1871) and
George E. Spencer (1868–1879)
who were both elected by the legislature before adoption of the Seventeenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
Alabama Republicans and the Populists (1890–1916)
By the late 1890s, a coalition between the Populist Party and the Republican Party often produced "fusion tickets", that combined forces in several subsequent elections to win control of several of Alabama hill counties in this era. They were most dominant in Marshall, St. Clair, Shelby, and Chilton Counties. Between 1892 and 1932 Shelby County was usually closely contested under the leadership of A. P. Longshore. Marshall County elected Republican Thomas Kennamer in 1896 to the Alabama House of Representatives. DeKalb County voted in 1896 for GOP Presidential candidate William McKinley. Chilton County was decidedly Republican between 1900 and 1912, including electing Lewis W. Reynolds as a Republican Probate Judge in 1904 and again in 1916. S. J. Petree was elected as a Republican Probate Judge in Franklin County in 1910; C. C. Scheuing was elected Cullman County Sheriff in 1910; J. B. Sloan was elected as a Republican to the State Senate from a district made up of Blount, Cullman, and Winston Counties. In 1910, J. J. Curtis of Winston County became the first Republican Circuit Judge (for Winston & Walker Counties) in Alabama since Reconstruction.
In this time period, in the 54th United States Congress, two brothers,
Truman H. Aldrich (1896–1897) and William F. Aldrich (1896–1897), both served as Republicans. William Aldrich also served in the 55th Congress (1898–99) and the 56th Congress (1900–01) with the unusual distinction of having been seated all three times in disputed elections ultimately decided by Congress itself.
After William Aldrich left Congress in 1901, no Republican would be elected again until 1964.
Post Office Republicans (1916–1962)
Following the end of the populist era, Republicans effectively competed in just a few isolated hill counties, mostly in north Alabama. While the Reconstruction period saw their strongest voting base in the
Black Belt counties, Republicans during this period relied on the north Alabama counties that had never been strong proponents of the institution of slavery. The GOP garnered its support from a coalition of small farmers, blacks, labor, prohibitionists, etc. Again, these were often voters primarily from counties across the northern width of the state like Lawrence, Blount, Cullman, Walker, Winston, and DeKalb counties. Many of these counties regularly elected some Republicans to local office or occasionally to the state legislature well into the 1920s. However, only
Winston County reliably elected Republicans to almost all offices as the county had attempted to secede from Alabama during the Civil War and has always been considered ancestrally Republican. During this prolonged period the Alabama GOP atrophied as a political party and became heavily dependent on federal patronage for its existence. The federal appointments during Republican administrations in Washington for such offices as local postmasters, U.S. Attorneys, and federal judgeships became the only real presence of a Republican Party to most of the state. The state party usually returned thanks for this patronage by pledging its National Convention delegates to the supporting administration, thus making control of the party only about seats at the National Conventions and the issue of patronage. This situation caused its members to be derisively called "Post Office Republicans" both inside and outside of the party. Since most of the party's effort and energy was to securing those federal offices rather than trying to win actual election at the ballot box the party almost died completely by the late 1950s. The most important and prominent of these Republican appointees would occur when
President Eisenhower appointed Winston County's
Frank M. Johnson to a Federal District Judgeship. Ironically, Johnson's frequent pro civil rights rulings from the bench would make him a hero to liberal Democrats and widely disliked in his own party. Johnson's owe father had briefly served in the state legislature as a Republican from 1942 to 1944.
The Goldwater Landslide and the modern GOP (1962–1972)
The modern Republican Party in Alabama traces its roots back to the election of
John Grenier as State Party Chairman in 1962. That year Grenier with the support of the Alabama Young Republicans forced long-time Chairman Claude O. Vardaman into retirement without a contest. Grenier, along with a new generation of political activists played leading roles in re-organizing the party and moving beyond the "Post Office Republican" era. Determined to change the focus back to winning elections they recruited serious candidates for Congress in 1962. That year they nearly toppled U.S. Senator
Lister Hill with the candidacy of
James D. Martin[Biographical Directory of the U.S. Congress] in a controversial race that Republicans have always maintained was "stolen" in the dead of the night. Two years later most of those same candidates for Congress would run again in 1964, resulting in a Republican sweep of five of Alabama's eight congressional seats with victories by
Jack Edwards,
Glenn Andrews
Arthur Glenn Andrews (January 15, 1909 – September 25, 2008) was an American politician and a United States representative from Alabama.
Biography
Andrews was born in Anniston in Calhoun County in North Alabama, a son of Roger Lee Andrews ...
,
James D. Martin,
John Buchanan and
Bill Dickinson.
Martin would give up his congressional seat two years later in an unsuccessful run for Governor against
Lurleen Wallace, but the GOP would hold three of the congressional seats for decades to come. That election, commonly referred to in Alabama as "The Goldwater Landslide" would see the GOP win several dozen local offices. It also included the election of Probate Judges in Cullman County named
Guy Hunt and
Perry O. Hooper, Sr., in Montgomery County. Both would later go on to greater electoral successes. The 1964 election is credited as partially laying the foundations for Alabama's modern Republican Party. Among the party's other prominent officeholders in the period was
George G. Siebels, Jr. who served two terms as Mayor of Birmingham from 1967 to 1975. In 1968, the party went through a nasty internal struggle for Alabama's seat on the Republican National Committee.
John Grenier would lose that contest to
Jim Martin. It would take many years to heal the rift the bitter race had caused between two old friends and their respective supporters in the party.
Statewide primary and the 1986 election (1972–2010)
In 1972, the state party made a historic change from a state convention nominating system for all candidates to having a statewide party primary. This allowed voters to directly choose all nominees for public and party offices with its main goal being to broaden public support for the party. It would only slowly have that desired effect. In 1978, the party would begin its long steady build-up to competing for seats in the legislature by winning a few seats in suburban Birmingham, Mobile, and Montgomery. In 1980,
Jeremiah Denton became the first popularly elected Republican U. S. Senator in Alabama history after first winning that new statewide primary.
In 1982,
Emory Folmar who would serve as Mayor of Montgomery (1977–1999) would make the party's first serious run for Governor since Martin in 1966. However, four years later in 1986, the wisdom of the change to a primary finally paid huge dividends for the GOP.
Guy Hunt in a very unusual election would defeat the Democrat with 57% of the vote in the governor's race. Hunt had been chosen in a statewide primary and the Democrat's disqualified their nominee claiming he had "unfairly" won their primary. Voters rewarded the GOP by electing Guy Hunt. Hunt's election is widely viewed as effectively making Alabama a two-party state even though Republicans only made very modest legislative gains that year. The victory in the governor's race in
1986 was the first Republican win in a statewide constitutional office since
Reconstruction
Reconstruction may refer to:
Politics, history, and sociology
*Reconstruction (law), the transfer of a company's (or several companies') business to a new company
*''Perestroika'' (Russian for "reconstruction"), a late 20th century Soviet Union ...
, ending 114 years of Democratic control. Almost immediately the party became focused on winning the other statewide races (lieutenant governor, attorney general, secretary of state, state treasurer, state auditor, commissioner of agriculture and the Public Service Commission). In 1994,
Perry O. Hooper, Sr. would defeat the incumbent Democratic chief justice of Alabama in another controversial race. That same year Republicans increased their total in the Alabama House of Representatives from 24 to 31 seats. Legislative membership continued to modestly climb each cycle and Republicans began winning other statewide offices. Republicans also won the state auditor's race and the secretary of state's office.
Republican dominance (2010–present)
The move to GOP hegemony in the statewide offices occurred fairly quickly. In the November 2010 general election 136 years of Democratic control of the
Alabama state legislature finally came to an end. That day, the GOP won large majorities in both chambers gaining 17 seats in the House and 11 in the State Senate. Within another two weeks four additional House seats moved to the GOP column as four self-styled conservatives bolted from the Democrats to the GOP just after they had been re-elected. Over the four-year term that followed another Democratic incumbent in the Senate would switch to being Republican as well as two more Democratic House members joining the GOP.
Also, in the 2010 general election Republicans swept all statewide races electing
Robert J. Bentley
Robert Julian Bentley (born February 3, 1943) is an American former politician and physician who served as the 53rd governor of Alabama from 2011 until 2017 upon his resignation following his arrest after a sex scandal involving a political aide ...
as governor and
Kay Ivey
Kay Ellen Ivey ( ; born October 15, 1944) is an American politician who is the 54th governor of Alabama, serving since 2017. A Republican since 2002, Ivey was the 38th Alabama state treasurer from 2003 to 2011 and the 30th lieutenant governor o ...
defeating the Democratic incumbent in the lieutenant governor's race. Republicans have won seven of the last eight governors races dating back to 1986. In 2012 Democrats lost the last statewide office still in their possession.
On April 10, 2017, Lt. Governor
Kay Ivey
Kay Ellen Ivey ( ; born October 15, 1944) is an American politician who is the 54th governor of Alabama, serving since 2017. A Republican since 2002, Ivey was the 38th Alabama state treasurer from 2003 to 2011 and the 30th lieutenant governor o ...
became Alabama's 54th Governor upon the resignation of
Robert J. Bentley
Robert Julian Bentley (born February 3, 1943) is an American former politician and physician who served as the 53rd governor of Alabama from 2011 until 2017 upon his resignation following his arrest after a sex scandal involving a political aide ...
. She became the second woman in Alabama history to hold the governorship.
As of 2021, Republicans hold both of Alabama's U.S. Senate seats and six of its seven seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. Until December 2017, no Democrat had been elected to the U. S. Senate from the state since 1992 when
Richard Shelby
Richard Craig Shelby (born May 6, 1934) is an American lawyer and politician who served as a United States senator from Alabama from 1987 to 2023. First elected to the U.S. Senate in 1986 as a Democrat, Shelby switched to the Republican Party i ...
was elected to a second term. Shelby switched parties in 1994 and has since been re-elected easily. On December 12, 2017, Democrat
Doug Jones defeated Republican Nominee
Roy Moore in a special election, and took office on January 3, 2018. He was defeated by
Tommy Tuberville
Thomas Hawley Tuberville (; born September 18, 1954) is an American politician and retired college football coach who is the Seniority in the United States Senate, senior United States senator from Alabama, a seat he has held since 2021. Before ...
on November 3, 2020.
The GOP has won six consecutive races for attorney general dating back to 1994. Six of the eight seats on the
State Board of Education have elected Republicans. The
Alabama Supreme Court, State Appeals Courts, and the rest of the state judiciary are moving decisively to Republican dominance. All nine Supreme Court justices and the ten judges who sit on the two statewide appellate courts are all Republicans. The partisan line-up of Circuit Judges following the 2016 general election consists of 82 Republicans and 66 Democrats. However, the Democrats judgeships are increasing limited to urban area as 34 of their 66 judgeships are in just Jefferson and Montgomery counties, while the GOP judgeships are spread among 38 different counties. As of October 2017, the GOP has a majority on the district courts with 62 seats to the Democrats 42. It is all the more dramatic when one considers that there were less than one half dozen GOP judges in Alabama prior to 1986.
As of March 1, 2016, of the 351 county commissioners in Alabama's 67 counties, the partisan breakdown is 183 Republicans and 168 Democrats. 37 Courthouses had Republican majority County Commissions, 28 had Democratic majorities, and 2 were evenly split.
[Alabama Association of County Commissions] Of Alabama's 67 elected county school boards, the breakdown of seats heading into the 2016 General Election is 201 Republicans and 172 Democrats. However, the GOP has a majority on 33 of those boards and the Democrats also have a majority on 33 with one remaining board being evenly split in Pike County.
Party chairman and officers
The chairman of the Alabama Republican Party is
John Wahl of
Limestone County. He was elected without opposition on February 27, 2021, at the Winter Meeting of the Party in Montgomery, Alabama. He had served the prior two years as Senior Vice Chairman. He was succeeded as Senior Vice Chairman by John Skipper of
Mobile County who was elected immediately following Wahl's election.
The secretary of the Alabama Republican Party also elected on February 27, 2021, is Carol Jahns of Prattville
Autauga County. She succeeded Josh Dodd of
Lauderdale County who served a single two-year term in the post. The party treasurer is Sallie Bryant of
Jefferson County who has held the post since mid-2017 and was re-elected in both 2019 and 2021. The longest-serving chairman in state party history was Claude O. Vardaman of
Birmingham
Birmingham ( ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands (county), West Midlands, within the wider West Midlands (region), West Midlands region, in England. It is the Lis ...
, who held the post for twenty years from 1942 to 1962. The first chairman of the Alabama GOP was John C. Keffer (1867) of
Montgomery, who was an agent for the Freedmen's Bureau.
Current elected officials
Members of Congress
U.S. Senate
Republicans have controlled Alabama's Class III seat in the
U.S. Senate
The United States Senate is a chamber of the bicameral United States Congress; it is the upper house, with the U.S. House of Representatives being the lower house. Together, the Senate and House have the authority under Article One of the ...
since 1994 when incumbent Senator
Richard Shelby
Richard Craig Shelby (born May 6, 1934) is an American lawyer and politician who served as a United States senator from Alabama from 1987 to 2023. First elected to the U.S. Senate in 1986 as a Democrat, Shelby switched to the Republican Party i ...
switched from the
Democratic Party to the Republican Party. Shelby was subsequently re-elected to a third term in
1998
1998 was designated as the ''International Year of the Ocean''.
Events January
* January 6 – The ''Lunar Prospector'' spacecraft is launched into orbit around the Moon, and later finds evidence for Lunar water, frozen water, in soil i ...
:
File:Tommy tuberville.jpg, Senior U.S. Senator
File:Katie Britt.jpg , Junior U.S. Senator
U.S. House of Representatives
Out of the 7 seats Alabama is apportioned in the
U.S. House of Representatives
The United States House of Representatives is a chamber of the bicameral United States Congress; it is the lower house, with the U.S. Senate being the upper house. Together, the House and Senate have the authority under Article One of th ...
, 5 are held by Republicans:
*
AL-01:
Barry Moore
*
AL-03:
Mike D. Rogers
*
AL-04:
Robert Aderholt
*
AL-05:
Dale Strong
*
AL-06:
Gary Palmer
Statewide Constitutional Offices
Republicans control all seven of the elected statewide offices:
*
Governor
A governor is an politician, administrative leader and head of a polity or Region#Political regions, political region, in some cases, such as governor-general, governors-general, as the head of a state's official representative. Depending on the ...
:
Kay Ivey
Kay Ellen Ivey ( ; born October 15, 1944) is an American politician who is the 54th governor of Alabama, serving since 2017. A Republican since 2002, Ivey was the 38th Alabama state treasurer from 2003 to 2011 and the 30th lieutenant governor o ...
*
Lieutenant Governor
A lieutenant governor, lieutenant-governor, or vice governor is a high officer of state, whose precise role and rank vary by jurisdiction. Often a lieutenant governor is the deputy, or lieutenant, to or ranked under a governor — a "second-in-comm ...
:
Will Ainsworth
Will Ainsworth (born March 22, 1981) is an American politician serving as the 31st lieutenant governor of Alabama since 2019. He previously served in the Alabama House of Representatives from 2014 to 2018, representing its 27th district.
Ainsw ...
*
Attorney General
In most common law jurisdictions, the attorney general (: attorneys general) or attorney-general (AG or Atty.-Gen) is the main legal advisor to the government. In some jurisdictions, attorneys general also have executive responsibility for law enf ...
:
Steve Marshall
*
Secretary of State:
John Merrill
*
State Auditor
State auditors (also known as state comptrollers, state controllers, or state examiners, among others) are fiscal officers lodged in the executive or legislative branches of U.S. state governments who serve as external auditors, program eval ...
:
Jim Zeigler
*
State Treasurer
In the state and territorial governments of the United States, 54 of the 56 states and territories have the executive position of treasurer. New York abolished the office of New York State Treasurer in 1926, in which the duties were transfer ...
:
Young Boozer
*
Commissioner of Agriculture and Industries:
Rick Pate
Statewide Statutory Offices
*
Alabama Public Service Commission
* President - Twinkle Andress Cavanaugh
* Associate Commissioner - Place 1 -
Jeremy H. Oden
* Associate Commissioner - Place 2 - Chris "Chip" Beeker, Jr.
Supreme Court of Alabama
The Supreme Court of Alabama is the highest court in the U.S. state, state of Alabama. The court consists of a Chief Justice, chief justice and eight Associate Justice, associate justices. Each justice is elected in partisan elections for stagge ...
*
Chief Justice:
Tom Parker
*
Associate Justice
An associate justice or associate judge (or simply associate) is a judicial panel member who is not the chief justice in some jurisdictions. The title "Associate Justice" is used for members of the Supreme Court of the United States and some ...
:
Brady E. Mendheim Jr.
* Associate Justice: Tommy Bryan
* Associate Justice: William Sellers
* Associate Justice:
Jay Mitchell
* Associate Justice:
Sarah Hicks Stewart
* Associate Justice:
Greg Shaw
* Associate Justice:
Kelli Wise
* Associate Justice: Michael F. Bolin
Alabama Court of Civil Appeals
*
William C. Thompson, Presiding Judge
*Christy O. Edwards
*
Matt Fridy
*Chad Arthur Hanson
*
Terry A. Moore
Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals
The Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals is one of two appellate courts in the Alabama judicial system. The court was established in 1969 when what had been one unitary state Court of Appeals was broken into a criminal appeals court and a civil app ...
*Mary Becker Windom, Presiding Judge
*Richard J. Minor
*J. Elizabeth Kellum
*J. Chris McCool
*James William "Bill" Cole
State Legislature
A state legislature is a Legislature, legislative branch or body of a State (country subdivision), political subdivision in a Federalism, federal system.
Two federations literally use the term "state legislature":
* The legislative branches of ...
*
Senate
A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or chamber of a bicameral legislature. The name comes from the ancient Roman Senate (Latin: ''Senatus''), so-called as an assembly of the senior (Latin: ''senex'' meaning "the el ...
**
Current senators
**
President Pro Tempore of the Senate:
Garlan Gudger (
SD4)
** Senate Majority Leader:
Steve Livingston (
SD8)
*
House of Representatives
House of Representatives is the name of legislative bodies in many countries and sub-national entities. In many countries, the House of Representatives is the lower house of a bicameral legislature, with the corresponding upper house often ...
**
Current representatives
**
Speaker of the House
The speaker of a deliberative assembly, especially a legislative body, is its presiding officer, or the chair. The title was first used in 1377 in England.
Usage
The title was first recorded in 1377 to describe the role of Thomas de Hung ...
:
Nathaniel Ledbetter (HD24)
** Speaker Pro Tempore:
Chris Pringle (HD101)
** House Majority Leader:
Scott Stadthagen (HD9)
Recent election cycles
2014
Republicans held onto every seat in their legislative majority in 2014. In fact, increasing their numbers again in both chambers by defeating incumbent Democrats and winning open seats. They added three State Senate seats to hold 26 to just 8 Democrats and 1 Independent. In the House they added five more seats taking their majority to 72 seats for the GOP and just 33 for the Democrats. Yet as recently as 1977, there were no Republicans in either chamber of the Alabama Legislature until a lone seat in Mobile County was won that year in a special election. In 2014, Governor Bentley received almost 64% of the vote, leading a sweep of all statewide offices that also included the re-election of Lieutenant Governor
Kay Ivey
Kay Ellen Ivey ( ; born October 15, 1944) is an American politician who is the 54th governor of Alabama, serving since 2017. A Republican since 2002, Ivey was the 38th Alabama state treasurer from 2003 to 2011 and the 30th lieutenant governor o ...
, the state's first female Republican Lieutenant Governor. GOP U.S. Senator,
Jeff Sessions
Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III (born December 24, 1946) is an American politician and attorney who served as the 84th United States attorney general from 2017 to 2018. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as United Stat ...
was unopposed for a fourth term, the first time in state history that Democrats failed to produce a nominee.
2016
The GOP Presidential nominee,
Donald Trump
Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who is the 47th president of the United States. A member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party, he served as the 45 ...
, handily carried the state in 2016 taking 62.1% of the vote over Hillary Clinton. This was the 10th straight GOP Presidential nominee to carry the state; the last Democrats to carry Alabama were
Jimmy Carter
James Earl Carter Jr. (October 1, 1924December 29, 2024) was an American politician and humanitarian who served as the 39th president of the United States from 1977 to 1981. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party ...
in 1976 and
John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald Kennedy (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963), also known as JFK, was the 35th president of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963. He was the first Roman Catholic and youngest person elected p ...
in 1960. However, Carter only received a plurality of the vote and Kennedy only received 5 of the 11 Electoral Votes of the state with the other six going to Virginia U.S. Senator
Harry F. Byrd. Senator
Richard Shelby
Richard Craig Shelby (born May 6, 1934) is an American lawyer and politician who served as a United States senator from Alabama from 1987 to 2023. First elected to the U.S. Senate in 1986 as a Democrat, Shelby switched to the Republican Party i ...
was re-elected that year as well as the state's six Republican congressman.
2018
In the November 6, 2018, general election, Republicans swept to an easy victory in every statewide contest with Governor
Kay Ivey
Kay Ellen Ivey ( ; born October 15, 1944) is an American politician who is the 54th governor of Alabama, serving since 2017. A Republican since 2002, Ivey was the 38th Alabama state treasurer from 2003 to 2011 and the 30th lieutenant governor o ...
winning a full term with over 59% of the vote.
Will Ainsworth
Will Ainsworth (born March 22, 1981) is an American politician serving as the 31st lieutenant governor of Alabama since 2019. He previously served in the Alabama House of Representatives from 2014 to 2018, representing its 27th district.
Ainsw ...
received over 60% in the lieutenant governor's race and
Tom Parker defeated Democrat Bob Vance, Jr. by more than 15 points in the race for Chief Justice. Democrats also lost another five seats in the Alabama House of Representatives making the new lineup to be 77 Republicans and 28 Democrats. Republicans held all their seats in both legislative chambers and also added one additional seat in the State Senate making the upper chambers partisan alignment to be 27 Republicans and 8 Democrats.
[Alabama Secretary of State website]
2020
In the November 3, 2020, general election, Alabama had a 62.19% turnout. President Trump carried Alabama with 62.15% of the vote, making it the 11th straight Republican presidential victory in the state. In the U.S. Senate race,
Tommy Tuberville
Thomas Hawley Tuberville (; born September 18, 1954) is an American politician and retired college football coach who is the Seniority in the United States Senate, senior United States senator from Alabama, a seat he has held since 2021. Before ...
defeated U.S. Senator Doug Jones with 60.21%. Jones 39.62% was the weakest percentage for an incumbent Democratic U.S. Senator in Alabama since the direct election of U.S. Senators began in 1914. Republicans easily won all six U.S. Representative races in which they fielded candidates. This included 64.88% in the open 1st District with the election of
Jerry Carl and the open 2nd District where GOP nominee,
Barry Moore received 65.30%. Republicans won all the statewide races. This included both seats on the
Alabama Supreme Court, two seats on the Court of Civil Appeals, and two seats on the Court of Criminal Appeals, in which the Democrats had failed to field candidates. Only in the statewide race for the Presidency of the Public Service Commission did the Democrats run a candidate. That individual lost to the incumbent Republican, Twinkle Andress Cavanaugh, who won a third term with 62.09% of the vote.
2022
In the November 8, 2022, general election Republicans swept all statewide elections. They maintained overwhelming control of the state legislature capturing 28 of the 35 State Senate seats and also held 77 of the 105 State House seats. Governor Kay Ivey won a second full term winning 66.93% of the vote over the Democratic nominee and a Libertarian candidate. Long-time U.S. Senator Richard Shelby did not seek re-election. He was succeeded by
Katie Britt
Katie Elizabeth Boyd Britt (née Boyd; born February 2, 1982) is an American politician and attorney serving since 2023 as the Seniority in the United States Senate, junior United States Senate, United States senator from Alabama. A member of the ...
who captured 66.64% of the vote becoming the first woman "elected" from the state. Two women had served partial "unexpired terms" upon appointment by the governor. They were Maryon Pittman Allen (1978) and
Dixie Bibb Graves (1937–38).
Alabama is one of the more staunchly
Republican states in the nation. According to the Gallup polling organization, Alabama is the eighth most Republican state in the nation.
Past chairs of the Alabama Republican Party
Republican governors of Alabama
*
William Hugh Smith (1868–1870)
*
David P. Lewis (1872–1874)
*
H. Guy Hunt (1987–1993)
*
Fob James
Forrest Hood "Fob" James Jr. (born September 15, 1934) is an American politician, civil engineer, entrepreneur, and former football player. He served as the 48th governor of Alabama, first as a Democrat from 1979–1983, and then as a Republ ...
(1995–1999)
*
Bob Riley
Robert Renfroe Riley (born October 3, 1944) is an American retired politician and businessman who served as the 52nd governor of Alabama from 2003 to 2011. A member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party, he was the U.S. Hous ...
(2003–2011)
*
Robert J. Bentley
Robert Julian Bentley (born February 3, 1943) is an American former politician and physician who served as the 53rd governor of Alabama from 2011 until 2017 upon his resignation following his arrest after a sex scandal involving a political aide ...
(2011–2017)
*
Kay Ivey
Kay Ellen Ivey ( ; born October 15, 1944) is an American politician who is the 54th governor of Alabama, serving since 2017. A Republican since 2002, Ivey was the 38th Alabama state treasurer from 2003 to 2011 and the 30th lieutenant governor o ...
(2017–present)
[Alabama Department of Archives and History]
Republican lieutenant governors of Alabama
*
Andrew Applegate (1868–1870)
*
Alexander McKinstry (1872–1874)
*
Steve Windom (1999–2003)
*
Kay Ivey
Kay Ellen Ivey ( ; born October 15, 1944) is an American politician who is the 54th governor of Alabama, serving since 2017. A Republican since 2002, Ivey was the 38th Alabama state treasurer from 2003 to 2011 and the 30th lieutenant governor o ...
(2011–2017)
*
Will Ainsworth
Will Ainsworth (born March 22, 1981) is an American politician serving as the 31st lieutenant governor of Alabama since 2019. He previously served in the Alabama House of Representatives from 2014 to 2018, representing its 27th district.
Ainsw ...
(2019–present)
Republican attorneys general of Alabama
* Joshua Morse (1868–1869)
* Benjamin Gardner (1872–1873)
*
Jeff Sessions
Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III (born December 24, 1946) is an American politician and attorney who served as the 84th United States attorney general from 2017 to 2018. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as United Stat ...
(1995–1997)
*
William H. Pryor, Jr. (1997–2004)
*
Troy King
Troy Robin King (born August 22, 1968) is the former attorney general of the state of Alabama. He previously served as an assistant attorney general and a legal adviser to both Republican governors Bob Riley and Fob James. King was appointed by ...
(2004–2011)
*
Luther Strange (2011–2017)
*
Steve Marshall (2017–present)
Prominent Alabama Republicans
*
Winton M. Blount, Postmaster General of the United States (1969–1972)
*
William J. Cabaniss, United States Ambassador to Czech Republic (2004–2006)
*
William Hooper Councill
William Hooper Councill (July 12, 1848 – 1909) was an American former slave and the first president of Huntsville Normal School, which is today Alabama Agricultural and Mechanical University in Normal, Alabama.D. W. Culp, ed., ''Twentieth Cent ...
, black educator and first President of Alabama A&M University
*
Jeremiah Denton, U.S. Senator (1981–1987) and war hero
*
William Brevard Hand, U.S. District Judge (1971–1989)
*
Frank Minis Johnson, United States District Judge (1955–1979); U.S. Court of Appeals Judge (1979–1999)
*
F. David Mathews, U. S. Secretary of Health, Education & Welfare (1975–1977)
*
William H. Pryor, Jr., Chief Judge, 11th U. S. Circuit Court of Appeals
*
Condoleezza Rice
Condoleezza "Condi" Rice ( ; born November 14, 1954) is an American diplomat and political scientist serving since 2020 as the 8th director of Stanford University's Hoover Institution. A member of the Republican Party, she previously served ...
, U. S. Secretary of State (2005–2009)
*
Edwina Rogers, General Counsel to the Republican National Committee (1994) and prominent Washington lobbyist
*
Jeff Sessions
Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III (born December 24, 1946) is an American politician and attorney who served as the 84th United States attorney general from 2017 to 2018. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as United Stat ...
, Attorney General of the United States (2017–2018)
*
Margaret D. Tutwiler, United States Ambassador to Morocco (2001–2003)
*
Booker T. Washington
Booker Taliaferro Washington (April 5, 1856November 14, 1915) was an American educator, author, and orator. Between 1890 and 1915, Washington was the primary leader in the African-American community and of the contemporary Black elite#United S ...
, educator, civil rights leader, and first President of Tuskegee University
*
Heather Whitestone, Miss America (1995)
Electoral history
Gubernatorial
See also
*
Political party strength in Alabama
*
List of state parties of the Republican Party (United States)
References
Works cited
*
External links
*
Alabama Federation of Republican WomenYoung Republican Federation of AlabamaAlabama Minority GOP
{{Authority control
Politics of Alabama
Alabama
Alabama ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern and Deep South, Deep Southern regions of the United States. It borders Tennessee to the north, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gu ...
Political parties in Alabama