Huge increase in Democrat voter turnout leads to upsets in Madison County
MADISON COUNTY – Madison County went blue Tuesday. Democrat voters in the state’s third most populated county turned out in heavy numbers in the general election, leading to a few upsets which included long-time Madison County sheriff Kevin Turner being defeated by Democrat Brett Jones. Turner received 74,639 votes to Jones’ 84,068.
Also, Democrats Jared Sluss and Rudolph Valentino Drake won State Senate seats while Allison Montgomery captured the House District 25 seat over incumbent Phillip Rigsby. Montgomery has become the first transgender candidate elected to the state legislature.
Sluss ran for the District 7 State Senate seat, defeating incumbent Sam Givhan by 577 votes.
Drake defeated Republican John Roberts for the District 2 State Senate position being vacated by retiring Tom Butler. 7,455 votes separated the two candidates.
Montgomery scored 1,527 more votes than Rigsby in a state house district that includes part of Madison and Limestone counties.
In other races, Democrat Marilyn Lands easily held on to her position in State House District 10 over challenger Aaron Thomas. Democrat Laura Hall won reelection in House District 19, defeating Republican Donald Barnes. Republicans James Lomax and Rex Reynolds also won reelection in state house districts 20 and 21.
In State House District 4, Parker Moore dispelled a challenge by Hanu Karlapalem, 11,042 to 7,552 votes.
In State Senate District 3, Republican incumbent Arthur Orr defeated Democrat John Dickey.
For the US House District 5 seat, Dale Strong won reelection over Andrew Sneed, 142,080 to 124,763.
Voter turnout in Madison County nearly reached 50% participation at 47.7%, ultimately leading to a large gain in Democrat voters going to the polls this time around. The county only had a 20.55% voter turnout for the primary election in May and 39.13% four years ago in 2022.
The number of registered voters in Madison County has increased by 27,826 since 2022. There were 309,447 registered voters four years ago, compared to 337,273 today. 160,875 of those voted in yesterday’s election.
In most races, Madison County votes mostly favored Democrat candidates, causing state and district Republican candidates to draw from voters in other counties to win. For instance, Emily Jones of Madison, a Republican, won the District 8 seat on the State Board of Education over Shatika Armstrong. In Madison County, Armstrong led 84,037 to Jones’ 73,427, but District 8 also covers Limestone and DeKalb counties, which supplied the needed votes to put Jones over the top with 53.73% of the vote.
In Madison County offices, Democrat Jeff Taylor defeated incumbent Valarie Mills for tax collector. Taylor received 52.85% of the vote. Also, Republican Keith Trawick won Madison County Superintendent of Education over E. Quinn Headen with 52.66% of the vote; and Republican Brian Brooks easily won a Madison County Board of Education seat over Austin Jones with 70.42% of the vote.
Early voting and straight party voting in Madison County had a great impact in this election. Voters in Alabama can vote straight party, by either checking “Democrat” or “Republican” at the top of their ballots, blanketly casting their vote for all candidates of that party. However, even when voting straight party, they can still vote for a candidate of a different party by selecting that individual person on the ballot.
Compared to four years ago, significantly more voters chose the option of selecting straight party voting. In 2022, Republicans garnered 46,177 (63.83%) straight party ballots while Democrats received 25,512 (35.87%). In yesterday’s election, Democrats received 54,034 (53.09%) to the GOP’s 47,738 (46.91%). That means 28,522 more voters decided to cast their ballot for Democrats in straight party voting then four years ago. That is nearly a 111% increase. Out of the 160,875 ballots cast in this election, 101,772 voted straight party.
There were 6,910 absentee ballots cast in this election. 4,610, choose straight party voting with 2,836 of those ballots cast for Democrats and 1,774 for Republicans. Four years ago, there were 4,397 absentee votes. 2,711 were straight party ballots, with only 996 cast for Democrats and 1,700 for Republicans.
For complete unofficial results in Madison County, click here.
