For the last 12 years, Mobile’s mayoral elections have been dominated by Sandy Stimpson. Later this month, that will change.
In 2013, Stimpson defeated incumbent Sam Jones to kick off a three-term tenure that made him the longest-serving mayor in Mobile history.
Over the next decade plus, no candidate was able to present Stimpson with a serious electoral challenge: he breezed to a second victory over Jones in 2017 before winning re-election in 2021 with 62.5% of the vote.
However, Stimpson’s impending retirement and Mobile’s recent demographic changes have put the 2025 race in flux. For the first time in 20 years, the city is holding a mayoral election not contested by an incumbent.
Four candidates originally vied to fill Stimpson’s shoes; two of them, Mobile County Commissioner Connie Hudson and former Mobile police chief Paul Prine, were eliminated from the race after both received less than 20% of the vote during the August 26 general election.
Remaining are Alabama State Rep. Barbara Drummond (D-Mobile), who occupied an administrative position in the Mobile city government from 2006 to 2013, and Spiro Cheriogotis, a former Mobile County District judge who relinquished his position in January to enter the race.
As neither received more than 50% of the vote in August, the two will compete in a runoff election to be held September 23.
Cheriogotis possesses a substantial fundraising advantage over his opponent.
According to Alabama campaign finance reports filed on Tuesday, September 2nd, Cheriogotis has raised $1,361,107.88 and spent $1,039,179.88, leaving him with $321,928.00, while Drummond has raised $415,397.38 and spent $337,758.93, leaving her with $77,638.45.
Endorsed by Stimpson, Cheriogotis is taking advantage of the apparatus that helped propel the former mayor to three terms: One Mobile PAC, a political action committee linked to Stimpson and supported by many Mobile business leaders, has given Cheriogotis $50,000 in cash contributions and $13,620 more in in-kind services.
Drummond entered state government the year after Jones lost his seat to Stimpson and has represented Mobile’s HD103 since 2014.
The largest single contribution to her mayoral campaign came in the form of a $30,000 transfer from her legislative campaign account, but she has also received two $25,000 donations from the Montgomery-based Alabama Voice of Teachers for Education.
An African-American, Drummond has been endorsed by the race’s other black candidates, former Mobile City Councilman Jermaine Burrell and former Mobile Public Safety Director Lawrence Battiste, both of whom dropped out in June.
Drummond has also gained the support of Birmingham mayor Randall Woodfin, former U.S. Senator Doug Jones, and most recently, Pete Buttigieg.
In endorsing Drummond, Battiste noted that the presence of multiple African-American candidates on the ballot could potentially lead to the splintering of Mobile’s important black voting bloc.
Uniting behind Drummond, he said, gave her a chance to advance to the runoff election.
Mobile’s voting patterns have historically followed racial lines, and in citywide elections, the outcomes for black candidates often hinge on the turnout rate of black voters.
For instance, Jones became the city’s first black mayor in 2005 largely due to his near-unanimous black support; despite polling in the single digits among black voters, Stimpson, who is white, beat Jones in 2013 after the black turnout plummeted.
As the decade progressed, citywide turnout fell further. During the 2017 municipal elections, it was 36.6%; in 2021, it was just 24%, with majority-black precincts voting at a lower rate than average.
August’s general election slightly reversed the trend, seeing 26% of possible voters cast ballots, but black voters still came to the polls less frequently than white ones.
Similarly poor black turnout in the runoff would be particularly damaging to Drummond, as the bloc holds less power than it once did.
One of the Stimpson administration’s most prioritized goals was achieved on July 18th, 2023, when Mobile annexed three communities that lay outside its western border.
The effort brought the Port City to 204,689 residents, allowing it to leapfrog Birmingham in population, but it also caused an electorally significant change to Mobile’s demographic profile.
Around 4,114, or 27%, of the city’s newest voting-age citizens are black, while about 9,532, or 62%, of them are white.
Mobile’s voting-age population, which was previously 49.7% black and 44.4% white, is now roughly 47.5% black and 46.1% white.
Although Mobile remains a majority-minority city, the 2025 mayoral election is the first to be held since the black vote has diminished.
Despite her fundraising disadvantage, Drummond received 33.74% of the vote in the general election compared to 27.65% for Cheriogotis; however, most of her support was concentrated in predominantly black precincts.
Drummond hasn’t yet reached her ceiling with black voters — many cast their ballots for Prine during the general election, and a number of Prine’s black supporters could migrate to Drummond in the runoff — but unless turnout spikes dramatically, it will be harder than ever for her to win without displaying crossover appeal.
Cheriogotis will gain the support of the majority of those who voted for Hudson last month; thus, the election could come down to which candidate attracts more of Prine’s white voters.
In the tradition of Stimpson, white voters make up the foundation of Cheriogotis’ base — in August, he performed best in the precincts with low percentages of black voters, dominating the precincts surrounding Spring Hill — but according to University of South Alabama political science professor Thomas Shaw, it is not a guarantee Prine’s white voters will flock to Cheriogotis.
“Definitely, there is a lot of that stick-it-to-the-man kind of attitude amongst those Prine supporters,” Shaw told Mobile’s FOX10 WALA. “So that could very well motivate them above and beyond that racial motivation.”
Charles Vaughan is a contributing writer for Yellowhammer News.
