A Populist Response to the Midterm Elections, and the ALGOP’s Wake-Up Call

Guest Opinion by Samuel Barrett

I celebrated my 26th birthday on this past Election Day, November 3. This gave me extra incentive to pay attention to who would be on the ballot, since favorable outcomes would brighten my already festive day.

But now that the big midterm elections have come and gone, we have our results. A number of outcomes stand out to me:

• Susan Collins, longtime Republican from Maine, lost her seat.
• Jon Ossoff, Democratic senator from Georgia, kept his seat by a wide margin.
• Keisha Lance Bottoms, former Atlanta mayor, won the Georgia gubernatorial race over Rick Jackson by a wide margin.
• As of the evening of Sunday, November 8, the outcome of the Mississippi Senate race has still not been called, but the Democratic nominee currently leads.
• James Talarico won the Texas Senate election over Ken Paxton.
• Greg Abbott lost the Texas gubernatorial race, ending his reign after four terms.

Alabama elected:

• a transgender member of the State house
• an openly gay sheriff
• a Democrat in a recently redrawn district designed to favor Republicans, and
• an unqualified Governor and Lieutenant Governor (though the latter two did not win by as much as they expected)

A blue wave was expected. It absolutely happened.

It is easy to see why.

Leading up to the second presidential term of Donald Trump, he had a lot of momentum on his side, as well as plenty of people with him who were genuine, pro-people populists, not establishment politicians. This administration had everything it needed to continue to “drain the swamp,” get justice, secure the border, fix the economy, and begin to reel in foreign policy complications.

For the first year, that is somewhat what happened. It was more illegal immigration enforcement than anything else, but hey, the administration was keeping its promise.

The President gave a great State of the Union address in February. Things looked like they were going to go up from there.

But at some point between that SOTU address and Easter Sunday, when he woke up and put out a social media post in a spirit completely opposite to that of Easter, instead telling a foreign nation to “Open the f***ing strait, you crazy bastards,” the Trump we elected in 2016 and 2024 began to look eerily similar to any other establishment Republican, prioritizing endless wars, including proxy wars, over the American citizen.

Well, yeah, because war, along with illegal immigration, always causes debt, allowing the federal government, specifically the Federal Reserve, to print more money so it can support itself. To heck with the regular citizens of the country that those folks were elected to serve.

This is why you have people like Tucker Carlson, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and Thomas Massie who have denounced what the President has been doing since then. Yet somehow, Trump still maintains such a chokehold on the Republican faction in our nation that citizens blindly nominated in May every single candidate he endorsed, including Massie’s pro-war opponent in Kentucky and the pro-data center, anti-Muslim, unqualified gubernatorial candidate in Alabama.

I knew then, and I told people then, that the Trump endorsement meant nothing when it came to facing Democrats.

In light of the results on my birthday, that is undeniable.

Granted, Ossoff was an incumbent, and it is difficult to defeat an incumbent, especially when the opposing party is very unpopular at the time. Both candidates for Governor in that State were also unpopular, and neither was particularly great. So, Georgia was not set up for a great outcome either way. Talarico’s victory was not exactly surprising, and while I did not even think about Abbott losing, part of me thinks his time was up anyway. After four terms, his administration was getting complacent, if it was not already, so change there might be a good thing. The sexual orientation of an elected official is irrelevant because that is obviously beside the point in an election.

And Shomari Figures deserved to win the 2nd Congressional District in Alabama. Rhett Marques was not a good candidate, and while Figures isn’t the best either, he is far more prepared and polished to represent the district I live in. The fact that the district was redrawn to ensure a Republican would win, yet Figures won anyway, tells you what you need to know about the strength of Figures and the coalition-building capabilities of the Democrats.

Now for the Alabama gubernatorial result in more detail.

Tommy Tuberville did win. He will be the next Governor, despite his domicile issue still being unresolved. After the inauguration, you might hear something about a “quo warranto” challenge. The Alabama Supreme Court ruled that this issue could only be contested after a candidate is holding the office in question. That is a horrible ruling, and that court made a huge mistake in doing that, but if that is the case, when Tuberville is holding that office, you better expect someone to have the idea to challenge him then. The court can’t reasonably dismiss it at that point.

If that challenge goes through discovery and depositions, and Tuberville is removed, not only will that make him the third Governor of Alabama to depart office under a scandal since Don Siegelman in 2003, but the process will simply start over since Lieutenant Governor John Wahl will become Governor, and he has his issues with having allegedly made a homemade Alabama ID and having registered to vote in Tennessee. If he is subsequently removed, President Pro Tempore of the State senate Garlan Gudger would become Governor.

Do you know much about him? If you do not, don’t feel too bad. After all, you didn’t elect him to be Governor. Yet he conceivably could end up holding that position.

That is how much the Alabama Republican Party disregarded you, the citizen, and your voice this election cycle. They wanted their way, and anyone who got in their way by telling the truth was insulted, and the legitimate concerns they brought forward were disregarded. Yet the party acted like it was the party of the “socialist, communist, transgender, men-in-women’s-sports, bathrooms” tropes that was to blame.

No.

It is your own fault.

Scott Stadthagen was not prepared to lead the ALGOP. He took over after Wahl departed that role, after President Trump endorsed him for Lieutenant Governor before he even decided to run. And yet Wahl says he’s an outsider and not a career politician.

But anyways, Stadthagen got the job after that. His being essentially thrust into that position during an election cycle should have been a no-go. But the arrogance of the party allowed that to happen.

He and the party wanted their guy, and “their guy” is whoever Trump tells them is their guy. And somehow, someway, that particular election – the gubernatorial election – avoided the blue wave. Lucky you.

BUT…

Tuberville beat Doug Jones by a whopping total of…

…

…four percentage points.

FOUR POINTS!

That is close!

No one is talking about that. In the deepest Red State in the U.S., the Republican candidate for the State’s highest office beat the Democrat by a mere four points. A poll prior to the election showed the difference to be three points. The GOP disregarded that completely, and they don’t care how close the race was. They think because they won, it’s all good.

Maybe. But they still need to look in the mirror.

It may have taken only a small number of additional empowered Black voters to produce a Governor Jones victory. That needs to wake the GOP up in this State.

You cannot handle an election cycle the way you handled this one. Not if you want to win. Not if you want to prevent in Alabama what happened in Georgia six years ago, and this year.

If you want Alabama to stay red, you have to do the things that turned the State red a few decades ago. Put the people first. Stop the corruption. Stay out of the primaries. Don’t act entitled to anything, or expect anything to be handed to you.

It was not that long ago that Alabama was blue.

If you don’t want that to be the case again, you have to act like you don’t want that.

More importantly, you have to act like you want to support the people you want to vote for you.

Alabama did avoid a large portion of the blue wave.

Maybe if they had not, it would have given the ALGOP the kick in the backside it needed to wake up.

But this can still do that.

Don’t wait for a loss before you work hard again.

You have to wake up now.

And that goes for the party, and for the people.

Because the people are the ultimate jury in these elections.

Samuel Barrett is 26 years old and has written two baseball books but is now turning his attention to state politics and matters he feels important in his home state of Alabama. He assisted Ken McFeeters in his gubernatorial bid in 2026. He was born in Northport on November 3, 2000, so he celebrated his 26th birthday this year by voting, clad in a bright red suit, his usual Election Day attire. After short stints in Fayette and Decatur, he has resided in Phenix City since 2005. Barrett can be reached at rsbarrett00@gmail.com.

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