Tuscaloosa Mayor Walt Maddox is running for governor and leading the field as a Democrat: Glynn Wilson

This story has been updated to reflect the final vote count since the morning after the election.

By Glynn Wilson –

WASHINGTON, D.C. — In spite of all the big talk in the media and on Facebook about voters being ready for a change and a Democratic “Blue Wave” coming in the midterm elections in November, it seems the power of the status quo and incumbency is still alive and well in America, or at least in Alabama.

Governor Kay Ivey, who ascended to the office from the position of Lt. Governor after inheriting it from corrupt sex fiend Robert Bentley who was booted from office just last spring, easily won the Republican nomination on Tuesday without having to face a runoff from male challengers in Huntsville and Mobile.

According to the latest results from the Alabama Secretary of State website, unofficial results with 67 of 67 counties reporting, Ivey won with 56 percent of the vote, easily enough to constitute a majority and avoid a runoff. She was declared the winner Tuesday night. The closest challenger, Huntsville Mayor Tommy Battle, only got about 25 percent of the Republican vote.

While Democrats may take heart in the outright primary victory of Tuscaloosa Mayor Walt Maddox with nearly 55 percent of the vote, the important numbers to look at are how many Democrats turned out to vote compared to the number of Republicans. Maddox only inspired 154,559 to vote, while Kay Ivey, a controversial figure who refused to debate any opponents on either side and faced criticism for standing up for civil war monuments and criticizing students who walked out in protest of school shootings, received 330,743 votes. That’s 176,184 more than the Democrat.

The results show that 589,533 people voted in the Republican primary for governor, while only 283,081 voted in the Democratic primary, and overall voter turnout was just under 27 percent.

Contrast that to the special election last year when 40 percent of voters turned out in record numbers and elected Birmingham attorney Doug Jones to the U.S. Senate. Jones, the Democrat, got close to 50 percent of the vote over Republican Roy Moore and received 673,896 votes to Moore’s 651,972, winning by 21,924 votes.

In the primary race for attorney general, a couple of controversial names survived the primary. On the Republican side, former Attorney General Troy King nearly came out on top over incumbent and Bentley appointee Steve Marshall, but after all the votes were counted, Marshall got a little more than 28 percent to King’s 27.84 percent. Marshall received 154,219 votes to King’s 151,364.

Former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman’s son Joe came out on top in the Democratic primary, wining nearly 54 percent of the vote to political unknown Chris Christie’s just under 46 percent. Siegelman got 147,601 votes to Christie’s 124,915.

Notice again how many more Republicans voted than Democrats. In race after race, Republicans turned out in greater numbers than Democrats. This does not bode well for a Blue Wave in November.

Of course in some areas of the state, such as the Muscle Shoals area, local races took precedence to voters and they voted for sheriff and other local offices in the absence of strong candidates with lots of money for television advertising in the state wide races and campaigns for Congressional seats. Some voters reported on Facebook that they voted in the Republican primary to try to influence the results, but of course there’s no way to count the data on that or predict how many voters did it. We saw just a few comments about it on Facebook.

In a report from Etowah County, Ed Rudd, an administrator with the Alabama Internet Democrats group on Facebook, said people “had to vote Republican to effectuate that change in the Sheriff’s race.”

“From my many years of experience here in Alabama and nationally, turnout is a factor to consider but hardly a reason for either side to throw in the towel,” he said. “What I saw up close on Tuesday were voters hunting for change.”

“But the change was also playing our in the Democratic primary,” he said. “Lee Auman, a youngster in my book, was drubbing an excellent but traditional Democratic candidate for the nomination to face Congressman Aderholt. I truly believe everything are up in the air this year. I think that is good.”

Democrats are going to have to work harder, and perhaps depend less on bland political statements on Facebook and boring political speeches at routine county party rallies, both places only watched by the already faithful and nearly invisible to average, non-partisan voters. They are going to have to learn to take bold stances on hot buttons issues of concern to people of all stripes everywhere, including all those disgruntled voters who supported Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders for president two years ago.

Doug Jones managed to fire up Democrats, Republicans and independents to vote for him in an off-year election without openly criticizing President Trump, in part due to the radical right-wing nature of his opponent, former Ten Commandments judge Roy Moore, who became ensconced in a major sex scandal late in the race and received a host of negative national news coverage.

In other states, such as Virginia, Democrats are winning races by running strongly against Trump. Liberals, progressives, Democrats and independents, even in the suburbs, are horrified by Trump’s rhetoric and policies. They are looking for strong champions.

The conventional wisdom is this won’t work in a red, conservative state like Alabama, where Trump won big and is still relatively popular. But the fact remains that if Democrats do not do something to fire people up to turn out and vote, Republicans win by default.