State Rep. Kirk Hatcher secured on Tuesday night the Democratic nomination for Alabama Senate District 26, a Montgomery-area seat vacated earlier in 2020 by former Sen. David Burkette.

Per the Secretary of State’s unofficial results, Hatcher earned 3,961 votes to former State Rep. John Knight’s 1,374, meaning Hatcher was supported by almost 75% of the District 26 constituents who went to the polls for the special primary runoff election.

Hatcher will face former Montgomery City Councilman William Green, who ran unopposed for the Republican nomination, in a special general election on Tuesday, March 2.

Hatcher is considered the frontrunner in the general election, as District 26 is heavily Democratic. Burkette beat his Republican opponent with more than 80% of the vote in 2018 and his predecessor Quinton Ross ran unopposed in the 2010 and 2014 general elections.

Burkette, the seat’s previous occupant, resigned on September 1 amid an ethics probe into a campaign finance violation he committed during his tenure on the Montgomery City Council earlier in the decade. Burkette later pled guilty to the misdemeanor charge.

Hatcher trounced Knight in fundraising during the primary runoff, including receiving a $25,000 check from basketball legend and Alabama native Charles Barkley.

Additionally, Hatcher was endorsed by the Alabama Democratic Conference, an influential group that describes itself as the “Black Caucus of the Alabama Democratic Party.”

“As I have said to so many of our voters a vote for me is a vote for the future of this city and it’s not the simple language it’s a life of what we are doing to move things forward,” Hatcher told WSFA at a victory celebration Tuesday night.

If Hatcher secures victory on March 2, it would trigger another special election to fill his State House seat to be held later in 2021.

Henry Thornton is a staff writer for Yellowhammer News. You can contact him by email: [email protected] or on Twitter @HenryThornton95.