Alabama lawmaker Roger Bedford, Jr. attributed this to a “Red Obama backlash tsunami”, and the growing influence of George W. Bush's Republican Party in the South after the September 11 attacks.

The following Democrats hold prominent mayoralties in Alabama: Created during the 1830s under the leadership of conservative figures such as William Rufus King, John Gayle and William Lowndes Yancey, the local Democratic Party took to represent the farmers and the merchants living in Northern Alabama, advocating individual rights and opposing growing centralisation, against the Whigs who represented the urban populations, the Black Belt planters and their businesses allies and who advocated a more active government in the domain of internal improvements.

[5] In Alabama, until the Civil War, the main question were the National Bank, the tariffs and the distribution of the former Indian lands, with the preservation of slavery growing more and more in importance.

While most Alabama campaigns had as their main issues taxation, the railroads, and government reform, racial politics were never very far below and oftentimes brazenly in the open.

Several unsuccessful attempts to challenge the coalition of planters from the Black Belt and industrialists from the emerging city of Birmingham occurred in the party primaries.

But the Democratic leadership broke this populist movement through a combination of fraud, intimidation tactics, and deal-making that ultimately resulted in passage of the 1901 Constitution that disenfranchised almost all black voters and even most poor whites.

[citation needed] Adoption of The 1901 State Constitution was intended to permanently end any challenge to one-party Democratic rule and restore white supremacy in government.

However, at the same time the party would send to Washington, senators and Congressmen who regularly voted for liberal Democratic economic policies as long as it didn't interfere with maintaining segregation back in Alabama.

The Great Migration of Blacks from the Deep South to states such as New York or Ohio, where they would exercise the franchise and where they were an electoral bloc, along with a switch of public opinion meant the National Democratic Party had to act against Jim Crow.

They faced incumbent Democratic president Harry Truman and the Republican nominee Thomas Dewey and his running mate Governor Earl Warren of California.

In this period, Alabama continued to elect pro-segregation Governors with the exception of "Big Jim" Folsom, who was considered to be a "liberal" for his time.

During Folsom's second term, the U.S. Congress passed a modest Civil Rights Act of 1957, with strong bi-partisan support but Alabama's all-Democratic delegation voted against it including somewhat liberal Congressman Carl Elliott.

In 1964, Congress passed by large bi-partisan majorities, a very strong Civil Rights Act of 1964, however, once again, Alabama's all-Democratic delegation voted against it, including Senators John Sparkman and Lister Hill who both supported a 54-day long filibuster against the legislation.

Once again, the state party failed to support its pro Civil Rights nominee, Vice President Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota.

The personality and racial politics of Democratic governor George Wallace, dominated Alabama throughout the 1960s, 1970's, and until his retirement from elective office in 1986.

So in 1966, his wife Lurleen Wallace ran in his place and won a landslide victory in both the Democratic primary and the general election over Republican nominee, Congressman James D. Martin.

George Wallace then challenged him for re-election in 1970, and won a bitter and racially charged Democratic primary against Governor Albert P. Brewer.

This strategy worked long beyond what it did in many other southern states that had figured out how to accommodate their more racially inclusive electorates without blatant appeals to racism.

However, one-party Democratic dominance finally ended in 1986 as the Alabama Republican Party won the Governorship with the election of Guy Hunt.

[13] The final retirement of George Wallace in 1986 opened a bitter struggle for succeeding him between several major figures in the Democratic Party.

The controversial decision from the party leadership to run Baxley was deemed undemocratic by the electorate, leading to the landslide election of Guy Hunt, the first Republican to win the governor's race since Reconstruction.

The RBC found fault with the ADP bylaws' stipulation that the Vice-Chair of Minority Affairs could select up to 30 at-large members to the SDEC; that the bylaws only provided for the SDEC membership to reflect the ethnic makeup of the Democratic voting base from the last general election, which almost entirely accommodated African-Americans; and that most of the at-large appointees were selected by Reed from the Alabama Democratic Conference, which Reed has chaired since 1979.

[16] The controversial election and preceding events were the subject of a three-part series entitled "The Real Enemy," produced by Emmanuel Dzotsi for the podcast Reply All.

[26] During an executive committee meeting in May 2023, the Alabama Democratic Party approved new bylaws that eliminated its youth, LGBTQ and disabled caucuses.

[27][28] In reaction, the Alabama Political Reporter published an opinion column by journalist Josh Moon claiming that the controversy "might have buried the ADP for good".

After the private executive session ended, Isner said that there had been an effort to remove her from the vice chair position, but the motion ultimately failed.

[33] The DNC found that chair Randy Kelley had not maintained a proper membership list for the State Democratic Executive Committee, and that prior notice had not been given for the $50 fee in May 2023.

[34] In 1904 the Alabama Democratic Party chose, as the logo to put on its ballots, a rooster with the motto "White supremacy – For the right."

[37][38] In January 1966, over the objections of George Wallace and the Regulars, who feared the loss of White voters, the leadership decided, on a proposition from the Loyalists, helped by Charles W. McKay, the author of the "Nullification Declaration" against the Brown decision, who wanted to attract Black voters recently enfranchised by the Voting Rights Act of 1965, to replace "White supremacy" with "Democrats.

"[9][10] Thirty years later, in 1996, the party finally dropped the rooster, citing racist and white supremacist connotations linked with the symbol.