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Primary Election - TPR's In Focus - May 22, 2026 · In Focus with Carolyn Hutcheson

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  Support comes from the Wiregrass Archives at Troy University's Dothan Campus,
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  identifying and preserving historical documents and photographs for research related to the
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  Wiregrass region. More information at troy.edu slash wiregrass archives.
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  From Troy Public Radio, this is the news rep from In Focus, and I'm Carolyn Hutcheson.
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  Todd Stacy, host of Alabama Public Television's Capital Journal, reviews the results of the
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  primary election races, and the wild card rules the San Francisco Dock.
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  Todd, welcome back to the news rep from Capital Journal.
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  Good to be with you.
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  The big topic must be the election results.
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  Yeah, elections were on Tuesday. This is a primary election. It's called a midterm because
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  it's in the middle of the president's term, but for Alabama, we're electing everything from
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  governor, lieutenant governor, AG, all down the ballot. The top of the ticket this time
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  was the Senate race. There's an open Senate seat because Tommy Tuberville has decided not to run
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  again for Senate, but instead run for governor. So that opened up his Senate seat, and that was
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  really the biggest race on the ballot. Right now, on the Republican side, Barry Moore led the race
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  with about 39 percent of the vote, and Jared Hudson and Steve Marshall were very close,
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  but Jared Hudson made it into the runoff. So those two are going to be vying for the
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  Republican nomination. Another big race people have been following is this race for attorney
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  general. It's going to go to a runoff as well. Katherine Robertson won about 40 percent of the
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  vote. Jay Mitchell won about 34 percent of the votes. They will now go to a runoff. Also for
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  lieutenant governor, going to a runoff between John Wall and Wes Allen. Those were somewhat
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  predictable. So was the top of the ticket with the governor's race. Hardly any contest for Tommy
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  Tuberville. He ended up getting 85 percent of the vote. Same thing for Doug Jones on the Democratic
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  side. He got 78 percent of the vote. So those two are going to meet each other in November in the
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  general election, and that'll be a rematch of the Senate campaign back in 2020. So a big
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  election Tuesday, but if you want to read about all of it, you can go to aldailynews.com, and of
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  course we're going to be talking about all of these races and more on Capitol Journal this week.
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  Todd, what happened with the vote for constitutional amendment number one?
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  Constitutional amendments. These are things the legislature passes that actually go to the ballot
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  for Alabamians to vote on, and so two amendments were passed this time, but the big one was a
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  expansion, really, of Aniyah's Law. People are familiar with Aniyah Blanchard, the young college
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  student who was murdered by someone who was out on bail for a violent crime. And so the state
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  adopted a constitutional amendment about four years ago allowing judges to deny bail for those
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  accused of violent crimes, and what this would do is add more crimes to that. First-degree rape,
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  kidnapping, burglary, domestic violence, any of those crimes to be accused of, a judge can say
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  you're denied bail because we don't want you out on the street, and so that did pass.
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  Overwhelmingly, 81% of voters gave that approval. Well, Todd, it's time to lighten up with a wild
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  card. What have you found? Well, this one comes on the dock of the bay out in San Francisco,
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  where down by the wharf, they have a bunch of sea lions that like to get up on the dock and sun and
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  eat fish and mess with all the tourists and everything, and there's a kind of a king lion,
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  a stellar sea lion, 2,000-pound sea lion named Chonkers, and he's just become this local celebrity
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  there on San Francisco Bay where tourists will line up to try to get his picture. He's drawing a
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  big social media presence, but it's Chonkers the sea lion that has folks really enjoying their time
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  on the dock of the bay. He owns that dock. Well, Todd, who's on Capitol Journal? Gonna be talking
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  with House Speaker Nathaniel Ledbetter. Every member of the legislature was on the ballot as
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  well, so we'll be talking a lot about that. Also going to be talking to my colleagues Randy Scott
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  and Jeff Sanders about their perspectives on some of these races that have just happened
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  at 7 30 tonight on Alabama Public Television. Also Sunday at noon and on YouTube. Thank you, Todd.
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  Thank you. That was Todd Stacy, host of Alabama Public Television's Capitol Journal.
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  More information can be found at the website aptv.org. Thanks for joining us for the news wrap
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  from In Focus, which is a podcast wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Carolyn Hutcheson,
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  and this is listener-supported Troy Public Radio.