Top 3 non-presidential races to watch in Alabama’s upcoming primary elections

The vast majority of the press leading up to Alabama’s March 1st primary elections will be devoted to the presidential race, and rightfully so. It is, after all, the first time Alabama and many other southern states will play a prominent role in the nominating process, thanks to the so called SEC Primary.

Most of Alabama’s next round of state-level elections will not take place until 2018, but there are a handful of races outside of the presidential contest that are worth keeping an eye on.

Here are the top 3:

United States Senate

Senator Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) is being challenged by four little-known opponents this cycle, each of whom are seeking to tap into the anti-incumbent fervor that has swept the nation in recent years.

Past Baldwin County Young Republicans chairman and Uber driver Marcus Bowman; U.S. Army veteran and reconnaissance drone pilot John Martin; Marine veteran and private security consultant Jonathan McConnell; and former State Senator Shadrack McGill have each struggled to separate themselves from the pack and become a viable challenger to the well-liked and seemingly ubiquitous incumbent.

The most well-funded of the challengers, Mr. McConnell, has been plagued by integrity questions from the outset of his campaign. He was accused by Mr. Martin of offering to pay him to exit the race.

“He offered to pay me off and cover all of my expenses,” said Mr. Martin. “That was absolutely illegal.” Mr. McConnell concedes he told Mr. Martin he “would make sure (he) found people who could” reimburse him, but denies breaking the law.

More recently, Mr. McConnell could also face a $10,000 Federal Elections Commission fine for not complying with filing requirements.

As a result of Mr. McConnell’s ongoing issues and the other challengers’ inability to gain traction to this point, the national conservative groups who sometimes lift candidates out of obscurity to take on longtime incumbents have largely chosen to either stay out of the race or back Sen. Shelby.

Still, the rise of “outsider” candidates in the presidential race and the anti-incumbent mood of the Republican electorate make this a race worth keeping an eye on.

For now, the challengers are kind of like surfers out in the ocean, laying on their boards and holding out hope a big wave will come in and carry them to shore.

Second Congressional District

In Wetumpka Tea Party founder Becky Gerritson, three-term incumbent Martha Roby (R-AL2) is facing her first serious primary opponent since she beat tea party-backed candidate Rick Barber and incumbent Democratic congressman Bobby Bright to win Alabama’s Second Congressional District seat for the first time in 2010.

Gerritson gained national attention in 2013 for her passionate testimony before the House Ways and Means Committee, during which she detailed the Wetumpka Tea Party’s apparent targeting by the Internal Revenue Service. Since then she has appeared occasionally on Fox News as the court battle over the IRS’s targeting of conservative groups proceeded.

Gerritson, who is also the Alabama co-chair of Sen. Ted Cruz’s presidential campaign, has worked to define the incumbent as a moderate ally of House Leadership. Roby has answered with the endorsement of Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), whose impeccable conservative, anti-Establishment credentials have made him arguably the most popular elected official in the state.

“I’ve been impressed with Martha Roby since she first came to Congress,” Senator Sessions said in a statement of support.

The two candidates have traded endorsements from socially conservative groups (Susan B. Anthony List for Roby, Eagle Forum for Gerritson), and Roby has added the support of dozens of mayors throughout the District.

But as with many races, this one may come down to financial backing. Roby has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars while Gerritson has struggled to get out of the starting blocks, to this point deterring more well-funded national conservative groups from jumping into the race.

Public Service Commission President

In 2014, Alabama voters threw Terry Dunn off of the Public Service Commission for his cozy alliance with the state’s budding environmentalist movement. This year, he’s trying to make a comeback by taking on Commission President Twinkle Cavanaugh, who has positioned herself as Alabama’s most ardent opponent of the Obama administration’s wave of EPA regulations.

While most agencies pleaded for “level funding” and legislators rung their hands over actually having to make cuts, the PSC voluntarily slashed its own budget by one-third, making Mr. Dunn’s argument for change atop the PSC even more difficult in a GOP primary.

The only real unknown in this race is whether the out-of-state environmental groups that have funneled millions of dollars into Alabama in recent years to advance the so called “War on Coal” will pony up more in an attempt to get their favored candidate back into office.