United States Senate election in Alabama, 1996
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County results
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The 1996 United States Senate election in Alabama was held on November 5, 1996. Incumbent Democratic U.S. Senator Howell Heflin decided to retire. Republican Jeff Sessions won the open seat, becoming just the second Republican U.S. Senator elected to represent Alabama since Reconstruction (Richard Shelby became a Republican in 1994, but he was elected as a Democrat).
In the 1968 presidential election, Alabama supported native son and American Independent Party candidate George Wallace over both Richard Nixon and Hubert Humphrey. Wallace was the official Democratic candidate in Alabama, while Humphrey was listed as the "National Democratic". In 1976, Democratic candidate Jimmy Carter from Georgia carried the state, the region, and the nation, but Democratic control of the region slipped after that.
Since 1980, conservative Alabama voters have increasingly voted for Republican candidates at the Federal level, especially in Presidential elections. By contrast, Democratic candidates have been elected to many state-level offices and, until 2010, comprised a longstanding majority in the Alabama Legislature.
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).
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