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MONTGOMERY, Ala. (WIAT) — Tuesday’s election shows Republicans continuing to dominate in Alabama, with Democrats seeing little excitement from the majority of state voters.
Democratic Party Chairman Randy Kelley says candidates need three things to succeed: a message, money and a machine backing them. He hopes to build that for the party going forward.
But looking at many of the races Tuesday, Democrats were simply outspent, outnumbered and outvoted for.
Kelley says he took over the party at an “all-time low,” and wants to make some changes before the next election through training and getting younger people involved.
“It’s a matter of rebuilding the party back up. But we have the basic mechanisms in place, and we have excellent team of people who’ve worked together over the years, and I really feel confident with the caliber of people we have to work with,” Kelley said.
The party has faced some criticism for a lack of online presence. Its Facebook page hasn’t featured a new post since August, and website posts haven’t been updated since then either.
Kelley says much of that wasn’t in his control when the party elected him leader in August.
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“The outgoing administration did not give us the password for the website, so there was no way we could update the website,” Kelley said.
Meanwhile, the state gets redder. Alabama Republicans cruised to victory Tuesday — winning every statewide race, continuing supermajority control in both the state house and senate and putting more than a dozen local and county candidates in office.
“Obviously, we’re really excited here in Alabama,” GOP Chairman John Wahl said on election night.
Wahl says he thinks the Republicans better reflect the values Alabamians care about.
“Things like fiscal responsibility, bringing inflation down, supporting the middle class and really defending the rights and the freedoms of every citizen here in Alabama,” Wahl said.
However, Democrats did prevail in some competitive races. In the redrawn House District 74 in Montgomery, Phillip Ensler beat incumbent Republican Charlotte Meadows, and in the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Race where Mark Pettway was re-elected.
