During part of the time he was at Troy, the faculty included Max Rafferty, former California Superintendent of Public Instruction, and former Governor John Malcolm Patterson, an intraparty opponent of both of his parents.
He narrowly missed avoiding a runoff in the primary, but prevailed over state welfare commissioner Faye Baggiano, who had nearly toppled Dickinson in the 1990 election.
However, Wallace's chances got a significant boost after his expected Republican opponent, State Senator Larry Dixon, lost his primary to Terry Everett, a newspaper publisher from the Wiregrass who had never run for office before.
In 1998, he switched affiliations to the GOP and was elected in 1998 to the Alabama Public Service Commission (Position 2), having defeated incumbent Democrat Charles B. Martin.
Hooper defeated former state Senator John Amari of Trussville in the Republican primary but then lost the general election to Democrat Susan Parker.
Wallace instead sought in 2006 the Republican nomination for lieutenant governor and entered a runoff election with Birmingham attorney Luther Strange.
In 2010, Wallace ran in the Republican primary to reclaim his old office of state treasurer, but lost the nomination to banker Young Boozer by nearly thirty points.