Tabitha Isner, Vice Chair of the Alabama Democratic Party, is claiming that the GOP ended her campaign and “voided your vote” in State Senate elections.
Isner announced this week that she is no longer running for the State Senate after the U.S. Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals granted Alabama’s motion to stay the injunctions that had blocked the state from using its lawfully enacted 2021 State Senate map and forced the state to run its elections under a remedial plan drawn by a federal special master.
The Eleventh Circuit’s ruling followed the U.S. Supreme Court’s April 29 decision in Louisiana v. Callais, in which the Court ruled 6-3 that the Voting Rights Act did not require Louisiana to create an additional majority-minority district — a decision that reshaped how Section 2 claims are evaluated nationwide. In its majority opinion, the Eleventh Circuit noted that the issues in Alabama’s case closely matched those in Callais.
Friday, Governor Kay Ivey voided the May 19 primary results in Senate Districts 25 and 26, calling a new primary on the state’s lawfully enacted 2021 lines.
“As of that moment, I was no longer the Democratic nominee for Senate District 26,” Isner said Tuesday. “The old map, the map that was deemed a racial gerrymander just six months ago, was put back in place, and a new primary election was called for August 11. Understandably, the incumbents have switched back to their original districts. If I were to keep running, I’d be running in a primary against Kirk Hatcher in a safely Democratic district.”
Isner expressed deep disappointment in the situation, bashing Republicans for messing up elections in the state.
“I’m heartbroken for myself,” she said. “Honestly, I’m heartbroken for my family and for my supporters who have already given so much to this effort. I’m heartbroken for the Democrats of Alabama, who deserve to have more than eight Democrats in the state senate. I’m heartbroken for the black voters who will once again be packed into Senate District 26 and denied representation in Senate District 25.”
Isner said she is now endorsing Hatcher, who is the incumbent in District 26, for the Democratic nomination.
“Well, now I am endorsing Kirk Hatcher for Senate District 26 Kirk,” she said. “We will be working together to turn out Montgomery Democrats in November, because there’s still a lot of elections on the ballot.”
“This is what the GOP wanted,” she added. “They wanted your vote to not count. They wanted you to feel hopeless. They wanted me to feel hopeless. They wanted all of us to feel like our votes don’t matter, but y’all, if our votes didn’t matter, they wouldn’t work this hard to take it away.”
Yaffee is a contributing writer to Yellowhammer News and hosts “The Yaffee Program” weekdays 9-11 a.m. on WVNN. You can follow him on X @Yaffee
