Montgomery held its nonpartisan primary on Tuesday, and Alabama’s capital and second-largest city has a good chance to elect its first-ever black mayor in the Oct. 8 general election.
Steven Reed, who made history in 2012 when he was elected Montgomery County’s first African American probate judge, took a strong first place with 42% of the vote. David Woods, who owns three local TV stations, beat retired Air Force Brig. Gen. Ed Crowell 24-12 for the second general election spot.
Montgomery’s population is about 60% black and 32% white, but the city has never been led by an African American mayor. According to the Montgomery Advertiser, there are only two other cities in the Deep South with a population over 100,000 that have yet to have a black mayor: Columbus, Georgia and North Charleston, South Carolina.
A Reed win in October would also be a pickup for Democrats. In 2009, Republican Todd Strange won a special election for mayor to succeed Bobby Bright, who had been elected as a Democrat to Alabama’s 2nd Congressional District. (Bright lost his seat in 2010 and later became a Republican.) Strange decisively won re-election in 2011 and 2015, but he decided not to run again.
Reed was elected as a Democrat to the probate judge post in 2012 by unseating Republican incumbent Reese McKinney in an upset. He’s also the son of Joe Reed, a powerful and controversial figure in the state Democratic Party. Woods, by contrast, ran in the 2008 GOP primary for the 2nd Congressional District and placed fourth with 17% of the vote.
P.S.: Former Rep. Artur Davis was also on the mayoral ballot on Tuesday, and things did not go well for the Alabama Democrat-turned Northern Virginia Republican-turned Alabama Republican-turned Alabama Democrat. We’re not sure what party Davis identifies with now, but it hardly matters since he took a distant sixth place with just 4% of the vote. Davis campaigned against Strange four years ago and lost 57-27.
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