Republican Sen. Richard Shelby announced on Monday that he would retire after his seventh term concludes, which means that 2022 will feature the first Alabama Senate race without an incumbent on the ballot since 1996, when Republican Jeff Sessions flipped the seat held by retiring Democratic incumbent Howell Heflin. Alabama requires a runoff in any primaries where no one takes a majority of the vote in the first round.
Speculation began well before this month about who would run to succeed Shelby, and one name that has been repeatedly mentioned is Business Council of Alabama head Katie Boyd Britt, who previously served as the senator’s former chief of staff. The AP also wrote on Friday that Britt, who would be the first woman elected to represent Alabama in the Senate, “would likely have the senator's backing if she decided to enter the race.” Britt, for her part, released a statement on Monday that praised her old boss but did not address her own plans.
A few Republicans did say they were interested following Shelby’s announcement, though. Rep. Mo Brooks, who helped foment the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol, said, “I am running for election in 2022, either for my House seat or for the Alabama Senate seat.” Secretary of State John Merrill, who spent a few months in 2019 running for the other Senate seat, said he expected to decide during the first two weeks of April.
Longtime Rep. Robert Aderholt, by contrast, responded, “I am perfectly content serving Alabama through my current work in the House and I don’t have any current plans to run for an open Senate seat,” which isn’t quite a no. Former Rep. Bradley Byrne, who took third in the 2020 primary, explicitly said it, while he wasn’t going to rule it out, “I’m doubtful I will run.”
Al.com, Politico, and Roll Call mentioned a number of other Republicans as possibilities:
- Lt. Gov. Will Ainsworth
- Former Ambassador to Slovenia Lynda Blanchard
- State Rep. Tommy Hanes
- State Attorney General Steve Marshall
- Rep. Gary Palmer
- 2020 House candidate Jessica Taylor
One person who hasn’t gotten much chatter, though, is former U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Sessions badly lost the 2020 GOP runoff to now-Sen. Tommy Tuberville, and an unnamed “senior GOP source” tells The Hill he’s unlikely to try and return to the Senate again.
The list of Democratic prospects is much shorter. Politico writes that former Sen. Doug Jones, whom Tuberville unseated last year, said “he has no plans to run.” AL.com name-drops Rep. Terri Sewell and state Reps. Anthony Daniels and Chris England as possibilities, though there’s no indication yet that they’re thinking about it.