Republican Jeff Sessions easily won a third term. Although the state put its power behind McCain, Democrats gained ground in some key areas. For the first time since the civil rights era, Jefferson County voted Democratic for president, supporting Obama with 53% of their vote. Jefferson includes Birmingham and is the most populous county in the state.
A close race was between Democrat Deborah Bell Paseur and Republican Greg Shaw for the state Supreme Court. Shaw was declared the winner on Wednesday morning with a nearly complete vote count, but Paseur is considering a recount. Paseur would need to pick up nearly 4,200 votes among the uncounted to trigger an automatic recall. Shaw's campaign says this is extremely unlikely and that the race is over. As of Wednesday morning, the race for Alabama's Public Service Commission was also too close to call. Both the Democratic candidate and Republican candidate are female, so the state's utilities board will become all female no matter the outcome. If Democrat former Lt. Gov. Lucy Baxley wins, the board will be all Democratic, too.
Although Alabama went to McCain, tried and true civil rights activists watched eagerly and emotionally as Obama was declared the winner and the first Black president of the United States. James Armstrong, 85, is a Birmingham barber and civil rights foot soldier who carried the American flag at the head of the 1965 Selma-to-Montgomery Voting Rights march. These are people that appreciate more than most the significance of Obama's victory. "I was wide awake at 1 and 3 and I got up at 5," Armstrong said. "I was thinking about the things Martin would say. All those speeches came to me." Many who recall the struggle for civil rights in Alabama were emotional, including Willie Mae Billingsley, one of the first blacks allowed to vote in Marion, in Perry County.
