The 2020 United States presidential election in Alabama took place on Tuesday, November 3, 2020, as part of the 2020 United States presidential election in which all 50 states and the District of Columbia participated. Alabama voters chose nine electors to represent them in the Electoral College via a popular vote pitting incumbent Republican President Donald Trump and his running mate, incumbent Vice President Mike Pence, against Democratic challenger and former Vice President Joe Biden and his running mate, United States Senator Kamala Harris of California. Also on the ballot was the Libertarian nominee, psychology lecturer Jo Jorgensen and her running mate, entrepreneur and podcaster Spike Cohen. Write-in candidates were permitted without registration, and their results were not individually counted.
Prior to the election, all 14 news organizations making predictions considered this a state Trump would win, or otherwise a safe red state. Trump won the state with 62.03% of the vote to Biden's 36.57%.
Primary elections
The primary elections were held on Super Tuesday, March 3, 2020.
Republican primary
As one of the Super Tuesday states, little campaigning has been done here, and the focus had been on the highly competitive Republican senatorial primary, which was expected to boost turnout.
Former Massachusetts Governor Bill Weld challenged incumbent president Donald Trump in the Republican primary in Alabama. Trump received 96.22% of the vote and all 50 delegates, while Weld received only 1.52% of the vote. Uncommitted votes made up the other 2.27%.
Democratic primary
Biden won the Alabama primary with 63.28% of the vote, winning 44 delegates. Bernie Sanders came in second place with 16.54% of the vote, getting 8 delegates. No other candidates won any delegates from Alabama.
General election
Polling
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Aggregate polls
Polls
Fundraising
According to the Federal Election Commission, in 2019 and 2020, Donald Trump and his interest groups raised $4,412,645.01, Joe Biden and his interest groups raised $2,412,420.93, and Jo Jorgensen raised $8,172.29 from Alabama-based contributors.
Candidate ballot access
- Donald Trump / Mike Pence, Republican
- Joe Biden / Kamala Harris, Democratic
- Jo Jorgensen / Spike Cohen, Libertarian
In addition, write-in candidates were allowed without registration, and their votes were not counted individually.
Electoral slates
The voters of Alabama cast their ballots for electors, or representatives to the Electoral College, rather than directly for the President and Vice President. Alabama is allocated 9 electors because it has 7 congressional districts and 2 senators. All candidates who appear on the ballot or qualify to receive write-in votes must submit a list of 9 electors who pledge to vote for their candidate and their running mate. Whoever wins the most votes in the state is awarded all 9 electoral votes. Their chosen electors then vote for president and vice president. Although electors are pledged to their candidate and running mate, they are not obligated to vote for them. An elector who votes for someone other than their candidate is known as a faithless elector. In the state of Alabama, a faithless elector's vote is counted and not penalized.
The electors of each state and the District of Columbia met on December 15, 2020, to cast their votes for president and vice president. All 9 pledged electors from Alabama cast their votes for President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence. The Electoral College itself never meets as one body. Instead, the electors from each state and the District of Columbia met in their respective capitols. The electoral vote was tabulated and certified by Congress in a joint session on January 6, 2021, per the Electoral Count Act.
These electors were nominated by each party in order to vote in the Electoral College should their candidate win the state:
Results
By congressional district
Trump won six of seven congressional districts. Trump's 81.1% in Alabama's 4th district was his best showing of any congressional district in the nation.
Analysis
A socially conservative Bible Belt state, Alabama has voted for the Republican presidential candidate in every election starting in 1980, and has done so by double-digit margins in all of them except 1980, 1992, and 1996. Most analysts expected the state to be uncompetitive.
Biden only won Jefferson County and 12 counties in the Black Belt; Trump won all other counties.
This election coincided with the 2020 U.S. Senate election in Alabama, where incumbent Democrat Doug Jones – who was elected by a 21,924 vote margin in a 2017 special election – ran for a full six-year term but was defeated by Republican football coach Tommy Tuberville. Despite losing, Jones outperformed Biden by 5.1 percentage points.
Exit polls
Edison
The following are estimates from exit polls conducted by the Edison Research for the National Election Pool (encompassing ABC News, CBS News, CNN, and NBC News) interviewing 1,201 Alabama voters, adjusted to match the actual vote count.
Associated Press
The following are estimates from exit polls conducted by the University of Chicago for the Associated Press interviewing 1,905 likely voters in Alabama, adjusted to match the actual vote count.