Alabama
Alabama's presidential results shift right — but not because of new GOP voters • Alabama Reflector
Alabama shifted about 3% toward President-Elect Donald Trump in Tuesday’s election. But if unofficial returns are correct, that may have less to do with new Republican votes than a shrinking pool of Democratic ones.
Trump got about 1.4 million votes (65%) in Alabama on Tuesday, according to numbers from the Alabama Secretary of State’s office, while Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, got about 766,680 (34%). About 58.5% of registered voters in Alabama participated in the election, the lowest number since 1988.
But Trump’s support was relatively unchanged from his numbers in 2020. According to the Secretary of State’s figures, Trump only added 11,540 votes to his total. Harris’ total fell by almost 82,000 votes — a drop of about 9.6% — over President Joe Biden’s numbers in 2020.
Experts say this shift points to declining Democratic engagement rather than a surge in Republican support.
Randy Kelley, chair of the Alabama Democratic Party, and several political science professors cited a lack of competitive races and stricter voting access rules as factors behind the lower Democratic turnout. John Wahl, chair of the Alabama Republican Party, pointed to sustained Republican outreach and demographic shifts as the GOP focuses on working-class and minority voters.
“They had many less Democrats on the ballot this time. They had few options to choose from,” Kelley said in a phone interview Wednesday.
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Democratic turnout decreased across the state in both rural and urban areas with significant losses in traditionally Democratic strongholds. In Jefferson County, for example, Democratic votes dropped by 20,000, while Republican votes fell by 8,000. In rural counties, the decrease was even more notable; in Franklin County, Democratic turnout dropped by 25%, compared to smaller decreases among Republicans. Similar drops were seen in the Black Belt, where Lowndes County showed a 22% decrease in Democratic votes from 2020.
Kelley said the limited options available to voters, especially in Black candidates, discouraged turnout. Kelley noted that fewer Black candidates ran in 2024 and said that the party must improve its recruitment efforts.
“Candidates bring out their constituents, and without representation, it’s hard to get people excited about voting,” Kelley said.
Spencer Goidel, a political science professor at Auburn University, said that Alabama’s election landscape in 2024 lacked competitive races to encourage Democratic voters. Unlike in 2020, when then-incumbent Democratic U.S. Sen. Doug Jones’s campaign drew some left-leaning voters, the current election cycle offered limited engagement.
“If you’re a Democratic voter in Alabama, people can tell you it’s important to go out and vote, practice your civic duty, but at the end of the day, there’s not much of a reason to vote, and I think that that just filters down. It discourages people,” Goidel said.
In Alabama’s seven congressional districts, only District 2 had a Democratic candidate — Shomari Figures — in races considered somewhat competitive. Figures defeated Republican nominee Caroleene Dobson in the district on Tuesday.
Wahl said he believes a Republican focus on economic and educational issues may have contributed to Democrats’ smaller margins in these areas.
“We love to have these new minority voters coming to the Republican Party, kind of seeking refuge from how far left the Democrat Party has gone, and we’re excited about that,” Wahl said.
Enrijeta Shino, a political science professor at the University of Alabama, sees Alabama’s results as part of a national trend where Democratic turnout has dropped while Republican enthusiasm remained steady. Shino said the votes in Alabama mirrored a broader pattern nationwide.
“That shows that Republicans were more energized, probably did better in get-out-to-vote mobilization for their base, and the messaging that they were getting from Trump resonated with them better than the messages Democrats were getting from Harris with her base,” Shino said.”
Alabama’s restrictive absentee voting rules in 2024 also may have affected turnout. The state had effective no-excuse absentee voting in 2020 in response to the pandemic, but state officials ended that program after that election. The change especially affected low-income and hourly-wage workers who may face greater challenges voting in person.
“When you only have Election Day voting, the cost of voting for people is higher, and when the cost of voting for people is higher, you’re going to see people who can’t get off work or have to take care of their children, can’t afford child care, people like that are going to be less likely turn out to vote,” Goidel said.
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Alabama
Alabama veteran, pastor react to Trump immigration directives
MONTGOMERY, Ala. (WSFA) – In the first week of his second term, President Donald Trump signed 37 executive orders. Eight of those dealt with immigration.
Maria Sahonic legally immigrated to the United States when she was just a toddler. Years later, she served the U.S. in the Air Force. Now she says she does not feel as safe as she once did in the country she calls home.
“I find myself having to walk around with papers that identify myself as a United States citizen,” said Sahonic. “I fear that I will be stopped for really no reason at all, and not being able to have them see that it’s credible, the ID that I have.”
A new directive from the Department of Homeland Security allows U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to enter “sensitive” areas, such as schools and churches, to make immigration arrests.
Pastor Bolivar Reyes with the Spanish language service at Capitol City Church of the Nazarene says this should be handled differently.
Speaking in Spanish, Reyes said, “The people who come and spend years here working for one reason, and for another they can’t legalize their documentation, but they are not people who lead a bad life.”
Reyes says the immigrants he knows are hardworking people who left their countries in search of a better life.
“While they come from other nations and other countries where life is not easy, and they come here because they are trying to work,” he said, translated from Spanish. “I’m talking about hardworking people, people who conduct themselves well and who really show that they are good citizens.”
Through tears, Sahonic expressed the heartache of her community.
“It’s just that it’s hard to think that somebody sees me and they don’t see me,” she said.
The Trump administration has assigned arrest quotas to ICE agents, directing them to arrest at least 1,200 to 1,500 people per day. ICE agents have made arrests all over the country, and Sahonic says they have been spotted in Montgomery.
The Drug Enforcement Agency has assisted ICE in one arrest in north Alabama, however, they have told ICE they would help with arrests in central Alabama.
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Alabama
How Many Wins Can Alabama Basketball Earn in Second Gauntlet of Season? Just a Minute
Welcome to BamaCentral’s “Just a Minute,” a video series featuring BamaCentral’s Alabama beat writers. Multiple times a week, the writers will group up to provide their take on a topic concerning the Crimson Tide or the landscape of college sports.
Watch the above video as BamaCentral staff writer Hunter De Siver and Will Miller discuss the extreme difficulty of Alabama men’s basketball’s final 11 games.
Earlier in the season, Alabama men’s basketball had a gauntlet of a 7-game non-conference slate on the schedule as the Crimson Tide went 5-2 during a stretch against four ranked teams that featured two road games, four neutral-site and one home game.
It’s impossible at this point in the season to name any other conference in college basketball that’s been better than the SEC. Four of No. 4 Alabama’s first seven conference opponents have been and still are ranked. The Crimson Tide has 11 SEC games remaining in the regular season and eight of its contests are currently scheduled to be top-25 matchups.
This is Alabama’s second gauntlet of the season:
If the season ended today, Alabama’s No. 4 spot in the AP Poll would give the Tide one of the No. 1 seeds in the bracket. ESPN’s Joe Lunardi actually has Alabama at No. 3 overall and placed it as the top seed in the Midwest region on Tuesday.
The question now is if the Crimson Tide can retain that status throughout the upcoming gauntlet. The number of wins can’t fully determine whether or not this will be the case, as a couple of other teams outside of the conference are also in the running for a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament.
But for now, BamaCentral’s Hunter De Siver predicts Alabama will go 8-3 in the stretch with losses to Kentucky at home and Tennessee and Auburn on the road. This would bring Alabama’s final 2024-25 regular season record to 25-6.
BamaCentral’s Will Miller predicts the Crimson Tide will also finish 8-3 in the second gauntlet, bringing Alabama’s final regular season record to 25-6. However, his losing predictions are slightly different as he believes the Tide will be swept by Auburn and fall to Tennessee. Additionally, Miller agreed with De Siver that the Kentucky game may not go in Alabama’s favor and suggested that the same outcome could occur against Florida.
Read More: Why It Will Be ‘Ridiculously Hard’ for Alabama Basketball to Defeat Mississippi State
How to Watch: No. 4 Alabama Basketball at No. 14 Mississippi State
Alabama Basketball vs. Mississippi State Official Injury Report
Alabama
Family of Michigan man set to be executed in Alabama calls on Gov. Whitmer to intervene
(CBS DETROIT) – Family members and advocates have asked Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer to intervene in a death penalty case set to move forward in Alabama.
“What more can I do but just ask. Gov. Whitmer, please give him that chance. Give the family a chance. Let him come back here,” said Carol Frazier, the mother of Demetrius Frazier, who is scheduled for death next week.
Carol Frazier and anti-death penalty advocates delivered a letter and a petition to the Whitmer’s office, imploring her to intervene in Demetrius Frazier’s case. But for their part, advocates did not dispute Frazier’s guilt.
“Now, Demetrius Frazier is not innocent. He was convicted of some horrific crimes. We do not deny that we do not in any way diminish that,” said Abraham Bonowitz, the executive director of Death Penalty Action.
Now in his 50s, Frazier was convicted and sentenced to life in prison in Michigan for felony murder and criminal sexual conduct back in 1993. He was later convicted of the rape and murder of a woman in Alabama three years later, and he faces the death penalty there.
But Bonowitz argued that Frazier shouldn’t have been extradited to Alabama in 2011. Bonowitz and Frazier’s mother asked Whitmer to negotiate with Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey to have Frazier brought back to Michigan to serve the rest of his life without parole.
“She is the only person with the power to stop this execution who would be willing to do so,” said Bonowitz.
Advocates say Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel’s office declined to intervene in another state’s criminal proceedings. CBS News Detroit reached out to the governor’s office for comment on Tuesday but did not hear back.
“I love him. I know he made mistakes. He committed to those mistakes,” said Carol Frazier.
Frazier is set to be executed in a gas chamber on Feb. 6.
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