Matt Woods wins special election to fill Senate District 5 seat
As of 9:16 p.m. Tuesday, Woods had 7,707 votes (86%) in unofficial returns for the north central Alabama Senate district, which includes Lamar, Fayette, Walker, the northern half of Tuscaloosa County, and the western part of Jefferson County. Democratic nominee Ryan Cagle, a progressive faith leader and community organizer and the first Democrat to run for the office since 2010, conceded around 9 p.m. At 9:16 p.m., he had 1,238 votes (13.1%).
Woods said in a statement that he looks 'forward to being a conservative voice for all of District 5.'
'We've got a lot of good things happening in Alabama and I'm going to work hard to ensure we remain a conservative, pro-growth, and pro-freedom state,' he said.
Cagle in his concession statement congratulated Woods and said his 'heart remains full and the fight continues.'
'We were outnumbered and outfunded in every way, but we made incredible strides this campaign. In the face of insurmountable odds, we have planted seeds that I know are going to continue to grow and blossom,' he said in the statement.
In a previous interview, Woods said he wants to continue and build on the district's conservative leadership and bring his experience in the House, where he focused on education policy, to the Senate. Cagle offered a different vision and campaigned on bringing change to the district, saying he believes that established politicians have long ignored it and are not attentive to and aware of the region's needs.
More: One Democrat, one Republican qualify for House District 63 special election
The seat was previous held by former Senate President Pro Tempore Greg Reed, R-Jasper, who resigned the seat at the start of the year to join Gov. Kay Ivey's administration as Senior Advisor to Workforce Transformation. As Senate leader, Reed was a strong ally of business interests, expanding tax incentives and workforce training.
The seat is strongly Republican. Reed first won the seat in 2010 as a first-time candidate with 73.3% of the votes. Reed subsequently ran unopposed in the Republican primaries and was not challenged by a Democratic candidate in 2014, 2018 and 2022, according to Ballotpedia.
David Boyett, probate judge in Lamar County, described the turnout as 'very low' and 'not a normal turnout by no means,' but that significantly more people showed up to vote compared to the Democratic primary held in March, where the county recorded 38 votes.
'We've been out and visited the majority of the precincts all day today, and I'm looking at a very low turnout. I'm seeing somewhere around 400 total votes cast so far,' Boyette said Tuesday afternoon.
Woods also said he was seeing a low turnout earlier in the day, but that he expected more people to show up in the evening.
'We think there will be an uptick when people get off work,' he said in a text message.
Cagle, when asked what kind of turnout he was seeing, said in a text message Tuesday afternoon, 'honestly, I don't know because I'm at work! #workingclassproblems.'
This article originally appeared on The Tuscaloosa News: Matt Woods wins special to election for seat in Alabama Legislature
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The Hill
an hour ago
- The Hill
‘Hit us, please' — America's left issues a ‘broken arrow' signal to Europe
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A regular commentator on MSNBC, he previously called the Constitution 'trash' and urged not just the abolition of the U.S. Senate but also of 'all voter registration laws.' Yet, he is not alone in signaling that his position is being overrun by his fellow citizens. After Elon Musk bought Twitter with a pledge to dismantle its censorship system, former Democratic Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton called upon Europe to use its infamous Digital Services Act to force him to censor fellow Americans. Nina Jankowicz, the former head of Biden's infamous Disinformation Governance Board, appeared recently before the European Parliament. She called upon the 27 EU countries to fight against the U.S., which she described as a global threat. To the delight of globalists, she declared, 'Before I describe the details of Russia's recent online influence campaigns, I would like to call upon you to stand firm against another autocracy: The United States of America.' This year, I spoke in Berlin at the World Forum and was surprised to see many Americans joining European leaders in support of the forum's slogan, 'A New World Order with European Values.' Attended by figures such as Bill and Hillary Clinton, the conference heralded Europe as key to countering the threat posed by the U.S. Others denounced America as the world's villain with boycotts and protests during Fourth of July celebrations. One leading influencer declared that 'this country is beyond f**ked' and encouraged citizens to 'walk away from the illusion that they built' around this country. Democratic politicians and pundits have fueled the anger by claiming fighting the current U.S. government is like fighting against the Nazis, including most recently former Vice President Al Gore. Others like Rep. Pramila Jayapal have called ICE agents 'terrorists' for enforcing immigration laws. The crisis of faith on the left often seems to be triggered by any adverse decision or election. 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Only 36 percent of Democrats reported being extremely or very proud to be American, compared to 92 percent of Republicans. Some are simply moving to foreign countries. The New York Times has fanned the flames of those claiming that the U.S. is a new fascist regime. Recently, it featured the declaration of three Yale professors fleeing American fascism for the free nation of Canada. In their piece, titled, 'We study fascism and we are leaving the United States,' the professors explain that 'the lesson of 1933 is that you get out sooner rather than later.' But what these professors call fascism looks a lot like the democratic process to others. The problem with democracy is that it does not always produce the outcome you want. For some, support for democratic choice seems to extend only to fellow citizens who make the 'right' choice, from their own perspective, of course. So faced with losses in elections and in Congress, many are shouting 'broken arrow' and hoping for external help in crushing the opposition. Yet the fact is, this country is not being 'overrun.' Those are fellow citizens who are calling for these policy changes and rejecting far-left policies. Just as many in Europe are calling on the EU to block far-right democratic victories, many in this country are advocating for the trashing of the Constitution or transnational interventions to reverse political voting trends. The fact is, the far left is not truly surrounded. They have simply retreated into smaller and smaller echo chambers rather than engage the rest of the country on these issues. Viewed from within the protected spaces of MSNBC or BlueSky, you can feel surrounded, but it remains a type of self-isolation. It is like watching wagons frantically circling on the plains without a hostile in sight. The problem is that most of America has moved on. In the end, the calls for a globalist intervention are a final desperate call of America's self-isolated left. Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University and the best-selling author of 'The Indispensable Right.'
USA Today
an hour ago
- USA Today
Gen Z's declining patriotism worries me. Partisanship shouldn't define us.
There is now a massive generational and partisan divide in how much pride people have in being American. I don't know how to solve it, but I know why those who are losing faith in America are wrong. Show Caption A Gallup poll reveals a growing partisan divide in American patriotism, with Republicans expressing significantly more pride than Democrats. Democratic patriotism appears tied to the party in power, fluctuating with presidential administrations. Generation Z exhibits the lowest levels of patriotism compared to previous generations. Every year, Gallup conducts a poll on the patriotic leanings of Americans across all sorts of demographics. In recent years, this poll has produced worrying results. There is now a massive generational and partisan divide in how much pride people have in being American. I don't know how to solve it, but I know why those who are losing faith in America are wrong. In the 2025 iteration of this poll, a staggering 92% of Republicans were 'extremely' or 'very' proud to be American, whereas just 53% of independents and 36% of Democrats reported feeling the same. Until 2016, Democrats and Republicans remained rather similar in their patriotism, with both reaching values above 80% before the election of President Donald Trump. However, modern patriotism among Democrats is dependent on who is in the White House, rather than any genuine love of America. During the time that Joe Biden was in the White House, Republican pride in being American bottomed out at 84%. Over the same period, Democrats rose to a peak of just 62%. One significant driver of this decline is Generation Z, born between 1997 to 2012, whose patriotism lags far behind previous generations. Just 41% of Gen Z is extremely or very proud to be American, and among young Democrats, that falls to just 24%. Partisanship is getting in the way of patriotism for Democrats Being proud to be American has absolutely nothing to do with being proud of our current leaders. In their fluctuations in pride depending on who is in the White House, Democrats have lost sight of this. I am one of the most critical people of our government out there, and I think of that as being borne out of my patriotism. Criticizing the government when it does not strengthen America's foundational principles is a patriotic act. My fellow columnist Rex Huppke has the right idea. 'We can love this country and loathe the people in charge,' he wrote in a recent column. 'We can be simultaneously proud of this country and embarrassed of the things being done in its name.' Now, obviously, I am no Democrat, but it saddens me that this same principle apparently does not hold for many of them. To many Democrats in modern times, it seems as if their love for this country is contingent on their preferred candidates being in power. Interestingly, this seems to be a problem unique to Democrats. While some Republicans seemingly faltered in their patriotism over the previous four years, they did not see the massive swing between the Biden and Trump presidencies that Democrats saw over the same period. This is all evidence of the fact that Democrats have attached their pride to a political movement, rather than to a love of America's founding principles. For some, this is a problem of them simply being blinded by partisanship. For others, however, it marks a much deeper problem. America's failures to live up to her founding principles at times are not evidence of those principles being bad; they are evidence of human nature being imperfect. Gen Z doesn't know how good we have it Much of Gen Z has been captured by the progressive left, many of whom do genuinely believe that America's institutions and system of government need to be torn down completely. These revolutionaries are responsible for the complete lack of patriotism among Gen Z. Gen Z doesn't realize how lucky we are. We live in the greatest country and in the greatest time in history. There is no collective group that has it better at any point in history than we do right now. Many will disagree with me on this point, but they are mistaken. There is no place better constructed to safeguard your individual liberties than here. While we are very obviously imperfect in that goal, no other nation on earth is better equipped to pursue liberty through the freedoms that our Constitution protects. Tearing down the system that has led to such a wonderful place would be a mistake. Within a framework designed to preserve liberty is the best place to enact whatever political change it is that you want, unless your goal is not liberty. Those who advocate against America's foundation might feel entitled ‒ in the sense that they believe it is the job of government to provide for them ‒ have taken the freedoms that we have for granted or are delusional about how good others have it. I do not know how to solve the problem of restoring patriotism to those who have lost it. I am sympathetic to the frustrations young Americans have with the state of our politics, and I am hopeful that Gen Z will learn that they are better off trying to change this country, rather than destroy it. America is a wonderful place, and you would do best to fight for your political causes within her structure of liberty, rather than attempting to tear it down.
Fox News
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New York Times columnist admits that Trump is a 'normie Republican'
New York Times opinion columnist Jamelle Bouie argued on Wednesday that President Donald Trump is much more of a "normie Republican" than both his supporters and critics may lead one to believe. Bouie's opinion piece, titled, "Face It. Trump Is a Normie Republican," contended that Trump has governed as a "mostly orthodox Republican" over the duration of his second term, and compared his first term to a hypothetical third George W. Bush presidency. "Perhaps the most underappreciated fact about President Trump is that he is a Republican," Bouie stated, noting that "nearly every commentator under the sun" has considered Trump to be unique "in ways that defy traditional categorization." The columnist pushed back on the notion that Trump cannot be considered a typical Republican due to his uniqueness, arguing that the "most salient detail" about the current president is that he's a "Republican politician committed to the success of the Republican Party and its ideological vision." "We saw this in his first term, with his signature legislative accomplishment, the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Was this his promised transformation of the American economy, the populist blow for those Americans left behind by the nation's failed political and economic leadership?" he questioned. "No, it was a massive upper-income tax cut designed to pay huge benefits to the wealthiest Americans, including the president, his family and their friends." Bouie continued, listing off actions taken by Trump during his first term, summarizing that, in short, "Trump governed like a Republican." "And it is not a stretch to say that much of his first term was, on the domestic front, more or less indistinguishable from a hypothetical third term for the previous Republican president, George W. Bush. Trump even ended his term, as Bush did, with a rolling set of crises and disasters, each exacerbated by his mismanagement," he added. The columnist claimed that Trump's "big, beautiful, bill" lines up with "what any Republican president would do," but has been cloaked in "the rhetoric of populism" by the president. As far as Trump's foreign policy goes, Bouie argued that the president's recent strike on Iran's nuclear facilities was reminiscent of the foreign policy of two former Republicans. "With one decision, Trump fulfilled the dreams of a generation of Republican hawks who have been clamoring for war with — and regime change in — Iran since President Bush proclaimed that it was a member of the 'axis of evil' in 2002. You could, if you were so inclined, draw a straight line from that speech to John McCain's 'bomb Iran' quips in 2007 to Trump's appointment of Mike Pompeo, a noted Iran antagonist, as secretary of state in 2018 to his airstrike last month," he claimed. The columnist concluded that some of the "worst" aspects of the Trump administration can be chalked up to the "specific authoritarian vision" of the president and his allies — but for the most part — this is "simply what happens when you elect a Republican to the White House."
