After November, Alabama will have a new governor, the newest slate of constitutional officers in a generation, and a brand new state house.
The one thing it will not have is a shortage of people who are absolutely certain they should be in charge of all three.
But those who actually are – can be found on this year’s list.
As Yellowhammer News celebrates its 15th anniversary, in a special edition of this year’s Power & Influence: Top 50, we’re taking stock of the most effective figures in the modern era of Alabama politics – and making picks of who will dominate in the next.
The honorees featured in this year’s edition are some of the most proven power players of the past decade-plus. And those who have been paying attention to our rankings for that long know that we’re not just guessing.
RELATED: 2026 Power & Influence: 50-41 / 2026 Power & Influence: Who’s Next?
Informed by those who know best, including Montgomery itself, each year we recognize the top individuals in government, politics, and business who leverage their power and influence to set the agenda, move the ball – and when necessary, stop things cold.
Here’s our look behind the curtain of who’s running state government right now more than ever:
40. Michael Davis
Balch & Bingham
Six years ago, we named Michael Davis to our list of the top 50 most influential Alabamians in Washington. This year, he’s making his debut on Power & Influence to get everyone up to speed.
Davis is a caliber of operator Alabama politics produces only every so often – part strategist, part lobbyist, part lawyer and ER doctor for problems that other people’s lawyers couldn’t fix.
His appearance on this year’s list is probably the most attention he’s ever received for his work on some of the most impactful undertakings of the Alabama Legislature this quadrennium. He also happens to be one of the most influential Birmingham-area campaign operators at this moment.
His influence on the federal and state levels, reach on the regulatory front, political instincts, and his trench of corporate experience is just the beginning. We imagine you should watch this space next year for more.
39. Clay Loftin
Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Alabama, Manager of Governmental Affairs
Clay Loftin works in one of those Montgomery lanes where stakes are some of the highest, and almost nobody gets credit for preventing the bad outcome before it happens. The outcomes he’s delivered in that exact lane are why he lands on this list for another year.
Among many others, this was a healthcare quadrennium. Among the biggest in recent memory. And to say Loftin made his mark is an understatement.
Loftin is fluent, where most have a textbook grasp. And ultimately gets results on behalf of the hundreds of thousands of BCBS members he serves every day.
But what sets him apart is how much people like working with him. One of Montgomery’s biggest personalities is also one who moves it the most.
38. Chase Wright
Spire Energy, Director of Governmental Affairs
He doesn’t chase the spotlight, but he’s a name that is well known to decisionmakers in Montgomery.
Spire delivers natural gas to hundreds of thousands of Alabamians through infrastructure that runs silently underneath everything else.
When it works, nobody notices. When it doesn’t, everyone does.
Wright’s job is to make sure the policy environment around that infrastructure never produces the second scenario – whatsoever.
He’s been doing that job in Montgomery for nearly two decades. He was doing it before most of the current term of members were elected.
And he’ll continue to elevate on this list as he makes himself acquainted with the next.
37. Jason Isbell
Regions Bank, Senior Vice President of State Government Affairs and Economic Development
There are sixteen states in the Regions Bank footprint. There is one Jason Isbell. Do the math on that.
More than 3,000 elected officials. More than 2,500 state legislators. 16 separate political ecosystems with their own customs, their own power structures, their own ways of deciding what passes and what doesn’t and who gets heard and who doesn’t. One man.
Jason Isbell is what happens when a state produces someone who is genuinely too good at this for the scale of the job he is officially doing. His tangible results in the Alabama Legislature are proof.
Some in the State House are trusted because they are feared. Some are trusted because they are useful. Isbell is so widely trusted because people actually like him. He just gets it.
Every year since joining Regions in 2021 he has appeared on this list. Every year the ranking reflects someone whose ceiling is not yet visible.
36. Clay Scofield
President & CEO, Energy Institute of Alabama
The influence Clay Scofield has accumulated in Alabama politics over fifteen years is, in the most literal sense, unspeakable.
Poultry farmer. State senator. Senate Majority Leader. BCA executive vice president. CEO of the Energy Institute of Alabama. Every title has been different. The underlying thing has been identical – a man who knows where power lives, how it moves, and what it costs, and who has never once been in the wrong place at the wrong time.
He also blocked the UAW from Alabama with the flat, undecorated confidence of someone who has never needed to raise his voice to be heard. The business community in Alabama has been looking for someone who talks like that for decades.
They found him. They are keeping him.
35. Jordan Doufexis
Chief of Staff, U.S. Senator Tommy Tuberville
If you’re wondering why we’re including a federal operative on this year’s edition of Power & Influence – we’ve got some news for you.
Jordan Doufexis is a good example of how this year’s list mixes both those who most are in charge of state government right now – and who’s about to be in the driver seat.
Coach Tuberville’s longtime and wartime consigliere, Doufexis is organizationally speaking, the Chief of Staff to his U.S. Senate office. He’s also his campaign manager. Messaging mastermind. Most trusted political advisor. And when he takes office as Governor of Alabama in 2027, Doufexis will be his Chief of Staff.
We’ve never played small with our predictions. And this year is no different.
Doufexis is about to show Montgomery that not all political careers start in Mountain Brook. They can also start on Sand Mountain.
34. Jared White
Auburn University, Vice President, Government Relations
Jared White has worked on both sides of the most consequential institutional divide in Alabama politics – inside the Governor’s office and inside Auburn University – and has emerged from both with his relationships and his reputation not just intact but enhanced. That is a harder thing to accomplish than it sounds.
Auburn’s political footprint in Montgomery has expanded in a big way under his watch.
The university’s interests in the next quadrennium – funding, research priorities, economic development, the full weight of what Auburn means to this state – will move through conversations with him.
That is not a coincidence.
33. Derek Trotter
Bradley Arant
Trotter has held more vantage points on the Alabama political process just about anyone at his game.
Chief of Staff to two Senate Pro Tems, member of the Governor’s staff, and now Senior Advisor at one of the most consequential firms in the state. Each stop added a layer. The accumulation is one thing.
Trotter’s influence comes from something harder to quantify than a title or a client list. He connects. Genuinely, durably, and in a way that gets results.
His clients are not paying for access. They are paying for the institutional memory and personal rapport of someone who has been inside every relevant room in Alabama politics and left each one better connected than when he arrived.
He is moving up this list. He has been moving up this list.
32. Bobby Singleton
Alabama Senate Minority Leader
Times are changing! But Bobby is still here.
Singleton is still the only person in the Alabama Senate who can simultaneously be entertaining and a headache, a servant of institutional goals and an obstacle.
He’s clotured like clockwork. He comes back the next week with a renegotiated position at the table. He’s ranting about Elon Musk at the mic one day. And the next he’s the fastest wordsmith through the procedure to pass a bill.
He’s got range. You never know what to expect.
But he’s a staple on this list because he knows how to wield power.
Although his ranking on it is adjusted for a potential change in Senate rules and a Tuberville administration who will be less patient with him – he will be a real force in the next term.
31. Scott Stadthagen
State Representative, Chairman of the Alabama Republican Party
Who didn’t expect a rise in Stadthagen stock in this year’s edition?
Stadthagen now holds what may be the single most strategically interesting dual position in Alabama politics: State lawmaker and Chairman of ALGOP.
Not to mention during the biggest statewide election cycle of the century.
We’re not even sure what a fully-focused Stadthagen looks like as party chairman yet.
Stadthagen is doing both at full speed, in the same building, at the same time, while the session clock runs down and the campaign calendar runs up.
As the dust settles on a contested party chairmanship election that, by all accounts, Stadthagen had the inside track on, and one of the highest-pitch sessions in recent history, his next steps will be the ones to watch most.
