BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — Gov. After a difficult race in which Kay Ivey was pushed far to the left, she defeated eight of her primary opponents to secure the Republican nomination for governor.
Ivey, who had a clear lead over Tim James and Lindy Blanchard, appeared to be overcome with emotion when she addressed her audience in Montgomery.
She thanked her opponents, touted her economic record of job creation and low unemployment and promised to keep being President Joe Biden’s “biggest roadblock.”
“I thank you with all my soul. Y’all have been great supporters,” she said. “I am so proud to be your governor.”
Blanchard finished second, having served as an Ambassador under President Donald Trump. James was the son of former Governor. Fob James, who was running for his third term as governor was third. Six other candidates were also behind them.
Ivey, who is facing the winner of the Democratic primary race between Yolanda Flower and Malika Sand-Fortier will contest every statewide Republican office in Ivey’s state.
Ivey, 77, is seeking her second full term after unexpectedly being catapulted to the state’s top office in 2017. After winning comfortably in 2018, Ivey might have expected an easy path to her party’s nomination this year. But that didn’t happen.
Ivey, confronted by a packed field, attacked Biden and emphasized her record. She also moved to the left in a state that has many GOP candidates struggling to be more conservative than one another. She repeated Trump’s false claims about election theft and aired a campaign commercial in which she pulled three things out of her purse for a campaign commercial: a lipstick, a cellphone and a revolver.
Blanchard and James slammed Ivey for doing too much to control COVID-19 in a state with one of the nation’s worst pandemic death rates, and James drew national attention by attacking a Birmingham-area charter school that opened under Ivey’s watch to cater to LGBTQ youth.
All of this was irrelevant in the end. Ivey took a victory lap, vowing that Democrats would not be able to gain a foothold within the state.
“Tonight the people of Alabama spoke loud and clear in support of our conservative record of results, and it’s a record I’m sure proud of,” she said.
Lew Burdette is a former business executive that runs Christian-based group home groups. Stacy George, who was formerly a county commissioner and prison officer, and pastor Dean Odle are also potential challengers. Springville Mayor Dave Thomas and Donald Trent Jones, an advocate for yoga, are other GOP activists and businessmen.
On June 21, Flowers (a Birmingham-based career educator) will face off against Sanders-Fortier (a Selma-based state senator).
Lieutenant governor at the time, Ivey ascended to the state’s top office when Robert Bentley resigned amid scandal five years ago. She has pushed a plan to construct new lockups to upgrade Alabama’s crowded, dilapidated prisons, which are the subject of a Justice Department lawsuit, and she passed a gasoline tax hike with automatic increases to fund road work.
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