PHOTO: Tuscaloosa Mayor Walt Maddox (photo by Ben Flanagan | al.com) will face incumbent Kay Ivey (Kay Ivey | Facebook) this November.
By Zach Hester • zach@southerntorch.com
MONTGOMERY, Ala. — The general election to elect a Governor for the great state of Alabama can finally be seen through a clearer lense. Tuesday night's primaries set up a face-off between Tuscaloosa Mayor Walt Maddox and incumbent Governor Kay Ivey.
According to the numbers gathered by the Alabama Secretary of State's Office, more than three quarters of a million votes were cast in the primaries for Governor of Alabama.
Maddox, who has run on a platform of expanding Medicaid and passing an education lottery for the state's schools, received 154,559 votes across the state with 434 of those coming from DeKalb County. He took the Democratic nomination over former Alabama Chief Justice Sue Bell Cobb, former state representative James C. Fields, Christopher Countryman, Doug "New Blue" Smith and Anthony White.
When accepting his party's nomination for Governor, Maddox said, "We began this journey knowing it was not about left or right, it was about right versus wrong. Together we are on the right side of history and we are going to win on November 6!"
While Governor Ivey was widely expected to win the Republican nomination eventually, she pulled an upset over the other four candidates in her race by winning the primary without a runoff. She overcame Huntsville Mayor Tommy Battle, evangelist Scott Dawson, state senator Bill Hightower, and Michael McAllister, who appeared on the ballot despite being deceased.
Ivey touts her record for bringing jobs back to the state as the focus of her campaign for a full term of her own. Ivey led the vote in DeKalb County with 6,081 votes cast in her name. She also won big across the whole state with 330,743 votes cast in her favor.
In a statement released via Facebook, Ivey said, "I am honored to be chosen by the people of this great state as the Republican nominee for Governor, and grateful for all your support along the way."
The race for Alabama Governor will be decided on November 6, 2018 with the winner being sworn in for a full four-year term in January.