Editorial Roundup: Alabama | #elections | #alabama

Editorial: A foregone conclusion

As the polls closed at 7 p.m. Tuesday evening, word went out immediately that incumbent Gov. Kay Ivey had won re-election, and that GOP candidate and Enterprise native Katie Britt would replace her mentor, Richard Shelby, in the United States Senate.

How is it possible that a winner can be declared immediately upon the close of balloting? Or two winners? In some scenarios, there’d be a great hue and cry about rigged elections.

In Alabama, anyone denying those results would be laughed out of the state. The Ivey and Britt wins were foregone conclusions, because the Republican base is so strong that elections are decided in the GOP primary, where both women won their respective races handily.

That’s attributable in large part to the ineptitude of the state’s Democratic Party leadership. Alabama Democrats have suffered from infighting in the upper ranks; power grabs and playground animosity have made individual races all but impossible to mount, to the disservice of otherwise viable candidates who’ve been unable to get their messages out to a wide audience. Through no fault of their own, Democratic office-seekers in our state have become also-ran candidates. For all practical purposes, Alabama is a one-party state.

The danger is that states dominated by one party often elect extremists like Georgia’s Marjorie Taylor Greene, New York’s Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Colorado’s Lauren Boebert.

Alabama is fortunate in that Kay Ivey has been a steady governor whose record suggests four more years of well-grounded leadership. Britt, having served as Shelby’s right hand before a successful tenure at the helm of the Alabama Business Council, should bring no unwelcome surprises in taking the reins of the U.S. Senate office.

Congratulations on the wins. We’re eager to see what you can do for the people of Alabama.