The Blue Shift: Democrats Gain Across Alabama

TL;DR: Democrats gained ground in every Alabama County Tuesday compared with 2022. An average of the Governor and Senate margin shifts shows a Statewide Democratic swing of about 30 points, led by Limestone and Madison counties. Republicans still won both races.

Alabama’s Republican candidates won the top races Tuesday. However, beneath those wins, State election records show a broad shift toward Democrats that touched every one of Alabama’s 67 Counties.

Across the Governor and U.S. Senate races, the average Statewide margin moved about 30 percentage points toward Democrats compared with 2022. Republican leads shrank across suburbs, cities and rural Counties alike.

According to the Alabama Secretary of State’s unofficial returns, Tommy Tuberville received 872,561 votes, or 51.79%, to Doug Jones’ 806,253 votes, or 47.86%. Tuberville led by 66,308 votes.

Barry Moore received 917,860 votes, or 54.69%, in the Senate race. Democrat Everett Wess drew 758,465 votes, or 45.19%. Moore’s lead was 159,395 votes.

Those wins were far narrower than the GOP’s margins just four years ago.

The certified 2022 canvass shows Governor Kay Ivey beat Democrat Yolanda Flowers by about 37.7 points. Tuberville’s 3.9-point margin marks a Democratic swing of roughly 33.8 points.

Katie Britt beat Will Boyd by about 35.7 points in the 2022 Senate race. Moore’s 9.5-point margin represents a shift of about 26.2 points toward Democrats.

Averaging those changes produces a combined Statewide swing of 30.02 percentage points. The Senate comparison involves Alabama’s two different seats, with different candidates.

A County-by-County calculation using the Secretary of State’s 2026 returns and the certified canvass shows Democratic gains in all 67 Counties. The Governor swing was larger than the Senate swing in every County.

The five largest combined shifts were:

Morgan County finished close behind Tuscaloosa at 32.67 points. These figures were calculated directly from State vote counts, with rounding applied after averaging the two races.

The five smallest combined shifts were:

Even the smallest combined swing approached 10 points. Greene, Wilcox, Macon and Lowndes already had large Democratic margins in 2022. Their smaller shifts should not be read as weak support for Democrats, but reflects their strong baseline Democratic strength.

The shift also changed which party carried several Counties.

Jones won eight Counties that backed Ivey four years ago: Barbour, Clarke, Conecuh, Madison, Marengo, Mobile, Russell and Tuscaloosa.

The combined ranking brings together several distinct parts of Alabama: the Huntsville area, Birmingham’s Shelby County suburbs, northwest Alabama’s Franklin County and Tuscaloosa. The gains extended well beyond the Democrats’ established bases.

It should be noted that these County returns cannot explain why each voter cast a ballot. Turnout, candidate appeal and crossover voting can all affect margins. The combined measure does not separate those effects or establish a lasting change in party loyalty.

Republicans retained enough support to win both races. What changed was the size of their advantage — and how much it shrank.

Tuesday’s results leave Democrats with gains across the entire State and Republicans with a much narrower cushion — and more reason to be concerned about the future — than they held four years ago.

Method: Calculations use only the Secretary of State’s unofficial 2026 returns and certified 2022 canvass. Each race’s margin equals Republican votes minus Democratic votes, divided by all votes cast in that contest, including other candidates and write-ins. The change from 2022 is calculated for each race, then averaged. The Statewide figure uses Statewide margins, not an average of counties. This combined measure is an independent calculation, not a Secretary of State index. All 2026 results remain unofficial.

For those who want to see the Governor and Senate races separately and don’t care to slog through the Secretary of State’s data, the Alabama Political Reporter has already done an excellent write-up on them.