Via the AP: Three out of four party switchers lose in GOP runoff

Party switchers were once the backbone of the Alabama Republican Party, but times are changing, with three out of four party switchers losing races for statewide offices in the Republican runoff.

Candidates who spent their entire adult lives working in the GOP vineyards — like Luther Strange and Perry Hooper Jr. — were generally favored by voters.

Their success came 20 years after Guy Hunt became the first Republican since Reconstruction to win the governor’s office and he started the transition that now has the GOP in control of the executive and judicial branches of state government.

[…]

The lone exception in the runoff was Circuit Judge Sam Welch, a party switcher who turned back first-time candidate Clay Crenshaw, as assistant attorney general.

Indeed, Alabama has evolved from being a one-party state to one that has full two-party competition (and indeed, it leans Republican). At the moment the problem is that the Democratic Party in the state has a lack of a “farm system” (to use a phrase from the piece). It’s best shot for governor in 2024 was Don Siegelman, and he was convicted on corruption charges, and their best best for serious statewide office is Jim Folsom, who was in office a few decades back. And, of course, the nominee for governor is almost 70. This doesn’t paint a great picture of hope for the party’s future in terms of major statewide office in the near to medium term.