Latest election news from across Alabama
Hello, everyone. This is your running Super Tuesday blog for the state. I'll be posting updates on any issues, key stories and breaking news from around the state and any Alabama-related national news. Keep checking back here all day for the latest information on Super Tuesday, including videos, photos and the latest vote updates.
11:45 p.m.
Alrighty, let's put a nice little bow on this thing.
Big Winners: Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Martha Roby, Richard Shelby, Mike Rogers, Bradley Byrne, Robert Aderholt.
Big Losers: Marco Rubio, John Kasich, Bernie Sanders, the Tea Party, Gov. Robert Bentley
Voters in Alabama shook off Bentley's endorsement of Kasich and denouncing of Trump -- and they ignored the recent KKK controversy (probably less of a surprise) -- to vote for Trump in a landslide. He ended up with better than 40 percent of the vote in a five-man race. Kasich, in the meantime, hauled in a paltry 4 percent. To put that in perspective, with more than 80 percent of the precincts reporting, Trump had 331,000 votes. Kasich had 33,000. Fourth-place Ben Carson had twice as many votes, 77,000.
In the meantime, on the Democratic side, Clinton won a substantial percentage of black votes (at one point it was around 90 percent) to cruise to an easy win. The momentum that Bernie Sanders once had now seems gone. With the primary wins Tuesday, Clinton all but locked up the nomination.
In Congressional races, the Tea Party backed candidates and "outsiders" who were challenging incumbents had little success in Alabama. Shelby trounced Jonathan McConnell. Byrne easily handled Roy Moore's mouthpiece, Dean Young. And Roby rolled Becky Gerritson.
9:15 p.m.
Alrighty, we have some significant results to report from across Alabama. No surprise, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump have easily won the state's primary races for president. Both have all but locked up the nominations for their respective parties.
In other races around the state ...
Richard Shelby v. Jonathan McConnell, Senate race: with 38 percent reporting, Shelby was at 70 percent and looked likely to avoid a runoff in the race.
Bradley Byrne v. Dean Young, House race: With 22 percent reporting, Byrne holds a comfortable 60-40 lead over Young.
Robert Aderholt v. Phil Norris, House race: With 50 percent reporting, Aderholt is a lock, with 80 percent of the votes.
Martha Roby v. Becky Gerritson, House race: Roby's camp is claiming victory and it appears to be an easy win over Tea Party challenger, Gerritson. Last report, with 14 percent of polls reporting, Roby was up 67 percent to 14 percent.
Mike Rogers v. Larry DiChara, House race: AP has called that race for Rogers, the incumbent. With less than 20 percent of polls reporting, Rogers had more than 75 percent of the votes.
7:02 p.m.
7 p.m.: Polls close in Alabama.
7:01 p.m.: National news sources call Alabama for Trump, Clinton.
Talk about quick.
5:45 p.m.
Hillary Clinton supporters are expressing optimism that they are headed to a big win in Alabama amid heavy voter turnout.
Montgomery County Probate Judge Steven Reed, a member of the Hillary for Alabama Leadership Council, said turnout in was strong and appeared to be setting up Clinton for a victory similar to the one she secured this weekend in South Carolina.
In Birmingham, Lashaun Smith, a 38-year-old health care worker, said she's supporting Clinton because she seems to be the most experienced and qualified candidate in the field.
"I think she can do the job," Smith said. "She's smart, she knows what she's doing and she's spent time with the president."
Smith added that Clinton's stances on equal pay for women and health care also resonate with her and she's confident Clinton will be the party's nominee.
— The Associated Press
4:45 p.m.
One of the most interesting stories from Super Tuesday came from Shelby County when an Alabama woman had to defend her driveway by using a lawnmower. As reported by WIAT, Norma Howell's driveway looks very similar to the turn into the polling center next door. To keep unwanted traffic away, Howell sat on her riding lawnmower at the foot of the drive all day.
“No, no I’m not budging. And I had one gentlemen to come by just not too long ago and he pulled right here and he pulled right here and had to turn around because I would not move,” Howell told WIAT. “I’ve had a couple of ladies to come by. One of them says you’re a smart woman. Another one came by and says stand your rights.”
4:15 p.m.
Dr. Ben Carson, one of six Republicans still running for president, issued a call for civility among his Republican competitors on Tuesday. Carson spent the morning campaigning in Montgomery, where he met with voters who were making their way into polling locations to cast ballots in the state's primary races. Early this afternoon, Carson's campaign issued a release in which he asked Donald Trump, Sens. Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio and Ohio Gov. John Kasich to meet prior to Thursday's debate.
Carson called the rhetoric of the campaign an "embarrassment on the world stage" and called it imperative that the remaining candidates pledge to "talk about the many serious problems facing our country, instead of personally attacking each other."
The attacks have heated up between Trump and Rubio of late. Rubio has made fun of Trump's "orange" skin tone and "small hands," and he joked that Trump might have "wet his pants" during a previous debate. Trump responded by referring to Rubio as "Little Marco" and saying, "People have always said to me, 'Donald, you have the most beautiful hands.'"
The 2016 campaign among Republicans has been particularly nasty, with several debates turning into shouting matches at times and being dominated by personal insults. Trump has been the ring leader, commonly referring to his opponents throughout the campaign as "losers," "a choker" or "liars." The lack of civility and unique nastiness of this campaign has been noted often by political pundits on both sides of the aisle, although Kaisch and Carson have mostly stayed out of the fray.
"The American people deserve so much more from the candidates who are seeking the most powerful position in the free world," Carson said in the release.
12:45 p.m.
Nate Silver and the folks at fivethirtyeight.com consistently have the most reliable election projections available. They have updated their Republican and Democratic primary projections for the Super Tuesday states, and Alabama's projections aren't exactly surprising.
On the Republican side, Donald Trump has a 94 percent chance of winning the state. Coming in second is Marco Rubio at 5 percent. In the 10 polls curated by fivethirtyeight to produce its projections, Trump held a double digit lead in all of them. The closest any candidate got in any poll was a Feb. 25 poll by Opinion Savvy, which had Trump up by +13 over Rubio. However, a Feb. 26-28 Monmouth University poll, which fivethirtyeight gave more weight because it had a larger and more diverse sample size, had Trump +23 over Rubio.
In every recent poll, Gov. Robert Bentley's favorite candidate, Ohio's John Kasich, was dead last.
On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton somehow has a better chance of winning than Trump in Alabama. Fivethirtyeight projects she has a 99 percent chance of winning over Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. The same recent Monmouth poll has her up +48.
11:30a.m.
The Secretary of State's website is still experiencing issues, and on social media, Sec. John Merrill is taking some heat. In exchanges with a number of citizens who are complaining about being unable to find the location of their polling place on the site, Merrill has instructed them to call his office (334-242-7200). He also drew heavy criticism for responding to one person on Twitter: "Apparently you and several thousand other people waiting until today to try to find their polling place."
Merrill also was less than kind to the service provider, ES&S, which is Election Systems and Software provider, over the malfunction, tweeting that his office "inherited this contract," and telling another person on Twitter that "if you can provide this service we will consider your proposal when we re-bid this."
ES&S was paid more than $1.7 million in 2015 to provide election software and maintain the alabamavotes.gov website. Merrill's office paid the company over $98,000 in January.
Minor glitches reported at some polling sites
10:05 a.m.
Voting got started at 7 a.m. this morning and by 9 there was the first issue of the day for Secretary of State John Merrill's office. The link at the Secretary of State's website (alabamavotes.gov) that provides info on local polling places was broken. Kayla Farnon, from the SOS office, said that as of 10, the website issue is still being addressed by the company that hosts the site, ES&S.
"Their system is overwhelmed and was not prepared for the amount of people accessing information," Farnon said in an email.
In the meantime, those looking for information on where to vote can call their local board of registrar's office for that information.
Primary day in Alabama comes with plenty of drama