United States Senate election in Alabama, 1996

The Alabama United States Senate election of 1996 was held on November 5. It was marked by the election of just the second Republican Senator from the state since Reconstruction.

Democratic Party nomination

Three-term incumbent Howell Heflin decided not to seek re-election. A 75-year old moderate-to-conservative Democrat, who was re-elected in 1990 with over 60% remained to date the last member of the Democratic Party who won a Senate seat in Republican-turning Alabama (his colleague, Richard Shelby, elected twice as a Democrat, switched to Republican in 1994 and still remains in Senate).

Candidates:
* State Senator Roger Bedford
* Congressman Glen Browder
* Marilyn Q. Bromberg
* Professor Natalie Davis

In the primary, set on June 4, none of these candidates won majority, which resulted runoff.
* Bedford - 141,360 (44.77%)
* Browder - 91,203 (28.89%)
* Davis - 71,588 (22.67%)
* Bromberg - 11,573 (3.67%)

Runoff (June 25):
* Bedford - 141,747 (61.59%)
* Browder - 88,415 (38.41%)

Republican Party nomination

Candidates:
* Jimmy Blake
* Walter D. Clark
* State Senator Albert Lipscomb
* State Senator Sid McDonald
* Democratic nominee for U.S. House 1st district Frank McRight
* Attorney General Jeff Sessions
* Businessman and frequent Democratic candidate Charles Woods

In the primary, held the same day as the Democratic primary, no candidate won a majority:
* Sessions - 82,373 (37.81%)
* McDonald - 47,320 (21.72%)
* Woods - 24,409 (11.20%)
* McRight - 21,964 (10.08%)
* Clark - 18,745 (8.60%)
* Blake - 15,385 (7.06%)
* Lipscomb - 7,672 (3.52%)

Runoff (held the same day as the Democratic run-off):
* Sessions - 81,681 (59.26%)
* McDonald - 56,156 (40.74%)

Other nominations

Mark Thornton was a candidate of the Libertarian Party. He had been his party's nominee for the 3rd congressional district in 1984.

Charles R. Hebner was a candidate of Natural Law Party.

General election

* Jeff Sessions (Republican) - 786,436 (52.45%)
* Roger Bedford (Democratic) - 681,651 (45.46%)
* Mark Thornton (Libertarian) - 21,550 (1.44%)
* Charles R. Hebner (Natural Law) - 9,123 (0.61%)
* Others - 633 (0.04%)

Sessions was re-elected in 2002 and is up for re-election in 2008.

ource

[http://www.ourcampaigns.com/RaceDetail.html?RaceID=158 Race details on OurCampaign]