In 2020, we rated Alabama’s Senate election, which pit incumbent Democrat Doug Jones against former Auburn football coach Tommy Tuberville, as “likely R” because of Jones’ possible incumbent advantage and the peculiarities of college football loyalty. Unfortunately for Democrats, Will Boyd, a Baptist bishop who has also run for Congress and Lieutenant Governor, does not even have what was Jones’ slim chance of defeating Republican nominee Katie Britt.

Young, photogenic, and a former staffer for retiring Republican Senator Richard Shelby, Britt is a perfect fit for the seat, but her journey to the nomination was hardly a straight line. The initial frontrunner for the seat was Congress Mo Brooks, a Trump diehard and one of the faces of the effort to overturn the 2020 election results. Brooks had garnered the former president’s endorsement, but Trump revoked his support after Brooks told a crowd of supporters that it was time to “move on” from contesting the last election. After Brooks began to fade, “Black Hawk Down” veteran Mike Durant took his turn in the lead, but his refusal to debate Britt and Brooks and his support for increased immigration hurt him with the base and left him in third place, outside of the subsequent runoff which Britt won handily. The primary has left a lot of people with hurt feelings – Durant said afterwards that he wouldn’t vote in the general election and that Katie Britt “doesn’t deserve to be a senator” – but that shouldn’t have much of an effect on her chances. A Democrat hasn’t been elected to a full Senate term in Alabama since 1992… and that was then-Democrat Richard Shelby.

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