In an appearance on Talk 99.5’s “The Matt & Aunie Show” on Thursday morning, Lieutenant Governor-elect Will Ainsworth (R-Guntersville) discussed Tuesday’s high midterm turnout in Alabama, emphasizing that he was “encouraged” that so many conservatives showed up at the ballot box.
For Ainsworth, the “Red Wave” in the Yellowhammer State showed that the election of “Doug Jones was just a fluke.”
“If you look at all the Republicans [who voted], one of the things I was encouraged by – you know all the stuff about a ‘Blue Wave’ or about Doug Jones – this shows that Doug Jones was just a fluke and that Alabama’s still a conservative state,” Ainsworth said.
Co-host Matt Murphy later brought Democratic gubernatorial nominee Walt Maddox into the discussion about Jones, discussing the “amateur hour” aspects of Maddox’s campaign “convincing themselves” that they only needed the same amount of votes as Jones got in December 2017, noting that gubernatorial/midterm turnout was always going to be much higher than a special election.
Ainsworth added his thoughts on the claims by Maddox that their internal polling had the race “within the margin of error” just days before Tuesday’s election.
“I kept hearing them say that it was close with their internals, but I’ll be glad to share this with y’all now, every poll I saw had, pretty much, it was how it ended up – Republicans were up 20 – 25 points. Even Tom Parker, you know the closest I think I ever saw his race was like 13 or 14 [points],” Ainsworth advised.
In her race against Maddox, Governor Kay Ivey became the first gubernatorial candidate in state history to receive one million votes. She also won Maddox’s home county of Tuscaloosa.
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Sean Ross is a staff writer for Yellowhammer News. You can follow him on Twitter @sean_yhn
