On April 19, Alabama Governor Kay Ivey called a special U.S. Senate election for December 12, 2017. The previous Governor, who was in office until earlier this month, had refused to call such an election until November 2018. See this story. Thanks to Mike Drucker for this news.
If any independent candidate, or any unqualified party, wishes to participate in this election, 35,413 valid signatures must be submitted by August 15. It would be possible to argue that the state should reduce the number of signatures, given that less than four months remains to gather these signatures, whereas normally a petition may take as long as the circulating group wishes. However, the state is not at this time voluntarily reducing the number of signatures.
What are the odds that Democrats pull an upset like they almost did in Kansas? It would be especially interesting if they nominated Terri Sewell, the only Democrat in Alabama’s congressional delegation.
Terri Sewell would have no chance at all state-wide, the district she’s been elected from is a Democratic stronghold no Republican will ever win, and frankly, while I don’t live in Alabama, most likely the only Democrats who would have a “chance” to win be so conservative I’d see little difference between them and the Republican anyway, and why would you vote for a Republican-lite over a Republican? I don’t think there’s any hope for a Democrat winning the Senate seat, especially in a special election, but I am happy one was called sooner than later. That is a good call on Ivey, so I’ll give her props for that.
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The congressional election in Kansas has a Cook PVI rating of R+15, and Thompson came really close. The State of Alabama has a Cook PVI rating of R+14. At least on paper, it seems to be plausible that a Democrat could win here