Steve Flowers Column

Former President Donald Trump paid a visit to the Heart of Dixie last week.  Obviously, this is Trump country.
Alabama was one of Trump’s best states in the 2020 Election.  He got an amazing 65% of the vote in our state. If the turnout for his August 21 rally in rural Cullman County is any indication, he would get that same margin of victory this year if the election were held again.  Many of those in attendance were insistent that Trump won last year’s presidential contest and that it was stolen from him.

Allow me to again open my political notebook for more summer political happenings in the Heart of Dixie.
As Labor Day approaches it looks as though the state constitutional officeholders, all Republicans, are going to escape serious or even any opposition. Lt. Gov. Will Ainsworth, Attorney General Steve Marshall and Agriculture Commissioner Rick Pate are running unopposed. However, all three are running aggressive campaigns or, as the old saying goes, are running scared.

This long hot and wet summer is coming to a close, and Labor Day is on the horizon. Labor Day weekend will not only mark the beginning of college football season, but also the traditional start of the 2022 political season.
Most of the horses are in the chute for the May 24, 2022, primary election. So let the fun begin.

The field may be set for the race to fill the Seat of our iconic senior U.S. Senator, Richard Shelby. When Senator Shelby announced that he would not seek a seventh six-year term in the United States Senate earlier this year, many of us expected a stampede of candidates to throw their hats in the ring. When a U.S. Senate seat opens for the first time in 36 years, you might expect everybody who had ever won a 4-H speaking contest to enter the fray. However, I guess politics does not have quite the allure that it used to in bygone days.

For over a year I have been touting the fact that the 2022 election year in the Heart of Dixie was going to be the busiest and most monumental in history.
Folks, it looks like it is not going to be as eventful as anticipated.  Yes, everything is on the ballot, but the power of incumbency is thwarting the drama.  It appears the U.S. Senate race is going to be the marquee event.