DeMarco vs. Palmer for all the marbles; how we got here and what to watch for next

With very little drama taking place in any statewide campaigns, the battle over Alabama’s 6th Congressional District seat has been the marquee race of this primary season.

Things got off to a strange start on Monday, Sept. 30 of last year when 11-term incumbent congressman Spencer Bachus broke the news live on Fox 6 that he would not seek another term, but the newscaster clearly didn’t understand how big of a scoop she had and continued asking him unrelated questions.

Washington, D.C. publication Roll Call was first out of the gate later that morning with a list of potential candidates who might run for the seat. Here’s what Roll Call’s Emily Cahn wrote in her speculative piece:

– State Sen. Cam Ward, who served as Bachus’ district director in the late 1990s before leaving to run for the state legislature.
– State Sen. Scott Beason, a member of the tea party who waged an unsuccessful primary challenge to Bachus in 2012.
– Alabama Republican Party Chairman Bill Armistead, a social conservative who used to serve in Ward’s state Senate seat.
– State Rep. Jack Williams, chairman of Alabama’s House Commerce Committee.
– State Rep. Paul DeMarco, chairman of Alabama’s House Judiciary Committee.
– State Sen. Slade Blackwell, whose district is located in the most affluent part of the 6th District.
– Cliff Sims, CEO of Yellowhammer News.
– Chad Mathis, an orthopedic surgeon and member of the tea party.

Most of the potential candidates speculated about early on opted out of running, but Mathis was the first to officially announce his candidacy on Oct. 8. He appears to have been planning to challenge Bachus in the primary and had already lined up the support of many major national conservative organization, including Club for Growth and FreedomWorks, who would go on to play a significant role later in the primary.

Gary Palmer jumped in the race Oct. 24, followed by State Rep. Paul DeMarco Oct. 27, Harbert executive Will Brooke Nov. 19 and small businessman Tom Vigneulle Jan. 23. State Sen. Scott Beason rounded out the field at the last possible second on qualifying day, Feb. 7.

From that point, the race went through four major shifts:

1. Stackin’ cash

The early storyline about the AL-06 race centered on candidate fundraising. Some national publications speculated that it would the “most moneyed” primary in the south, and possibly the country. Chad Mathis, Paul DeMarco, Will Brooke and Gary Palmer separated themselves from the other three candidates early on by posting significant fundraising hauls. Mathis and Palmer faded a bit as time went by, and Will Brooke was aided by large chunks of personal donations to his campaign, but DeMarco continued to power through thanks to his strong business community ties, especially among Birmingham’s major law firms.

2. Mathis sets everyone on fire

Mathis went hard negative early and often. He dubbed Beason, Brooke, DeMarco and Palmer “The Gange of Four” and went after them for what he described as “their sins on conservatism.”

It got so bad at one point that Beason, Brooke and Palmer held a joint press conference to decry Mathis’ scorched earth campaign tactics. Even Alabama Republican Party Chairman Bill Armistead took a shot at Mathis, calling his campaign tactics “not good for the Party.”

But it was working. Mathis rose from relative obscurity to a serious contender to get into a runoff with DeMarco, who has been the frontrunner from the beginning.

Club for Growth, a staunchly conservative Washington, D.C.-based PAC that was supporting Mathis, also chipped in a few hundred thousand dollars worth of television ads criticizing Will Brooke for past campaign donations he had made to Democrats. More on that in a minute.

3. Brooke kneecaps Mathis

After initially planning not to spend any campaign cash addressing the attacks from Mathis and the groups supporting him, the Brooke campaign finally responded by blistering Mathis with roughly $300k of hard-hitting ads on television, radio and mail.

Mathis’ momentum stalled.

4. Palmer pulls a Bentley, shoots up the middle

Back in the 2010 Alabama gubernatorial primary, Republican frontrunners Bradley Byrne and Tim James traded shots, while little-known insurgent candidate Robert Bentley stayed out of the direct line of fire. He ended up pulling off a stunning upset.

Flash forward to 2014’s AL-06 primary and Gary Palmer has to this point executed a very similar combination of political maneuvering and good ol’-fashioned luck.

But here’s where it gets interesting. Club for Growth, which was backing Mathis, thought they were doing him a favor by going after Brooke, and there’s no doubt they helped knock Brooke down. But that onslaught of negative ads compelled Brooke to fight back, which ended up knocking Mathis out of the runoff and allowing Palmer to skate through.

To Palmer’s credit, he has run a steady, gaffe-free campaign to this point.

I should have paid attention when @Cliff_Sims told me Monday that @Palmer4Alabama "has an opportunity to kind of pull a Bentley" in #AL06

— Madison Underwood (@MadisonU) June 4, 2014

At the end of the night on Tuesday, here’s where things stood:

Candidate | Votes | Percentage
Paul DeMarco | 30,842 | 33%
Gary Palmer | 18,627 | 20%
Scott Beason | 14,428 | 15%
Chad Mathis | 14,400 | 15%
Will Brooke | 13,076 | 14%
Tom Vigneulle | 2,394 | 3%
Rob Shattuck | 587 | 1%

So what happens next?

The runoff is set to take place 6 weeks from now on Tuesday, July 15. It’s going to be an incredibly low-turnout affair, meaning the impact of traditional advertising is somewhat diminished, and grassroots organizational skills becomes a real asset.

One of the DeMarco campaign’s consultants, Chris Brown, has made quite a name for himself winning low-turnout special elections in Alabama legislative races. He will play a significant role in trying to get DeMarco to 50% + 1.

Both candidates should be able to gather another round of cash locally, especially DeMarco. But the question is, will any of the third-party groups who initially supported Mathis now shift their allegiance to Palmer. It is well-known that Palmer solicited the same groups that Mathis did, but Mathis had gotten to them first and secured commitments.

Club for Growth and several other conservative groups have been engaged in an ongoing feud with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce over the last couple of election cycles. If Club for Growth goes all-in behind Palmer, the Chamber may feel compelled to engage on DeMarco’s behalf, which would set off another high-dollar clash.

We should have a pretty good idea of how things are going to shake out by the end of this week.

---

Follow Cliff on Twitter @Cliff_Sims