BALDWIN COUNTY, Ala. — Members of the Baldwin County Republican Party head into a leadership vote on Saturday, Nov. 14, with the local organization still divided over the bruising fight for House District 96. A formal complaint now targets one of the two contenders for county chairman, accusing him of showing favor online to the Democratic nominee in that race, and the back-and-forth between the candidate and his critics has laid bare tensions that have simmered since the spring primary.
Members of the Baldwin County Republican Executive Committee are set to choose between two of its own members for the chairman’s post. Whoever wins will take charge of a county party that has spent much of the past year arguing with itself, even as Republicans continued to dominate the county’s ballot.
A Party Still Sorting Out the District 96 Fallout
For many local Republicans, the friction traces back to the May primary in House District 96, which includes Daphne, Spanish Fort and nearby Baldwin County communities. Then-Rep. Matt Simpson of Daphne, a two-term incumbent, lost the Republican nomination to Danielle Duggar after a campaign that featured sharp attacks on his legislative record.
Simpson has accused two groups, the Christian Coalition of Alabama and Alabama Values PAC, of running political advertisements that misrepresented how he voted in Montgomery. He is still weighing whether to file a defamation lawsuit against the two groups.
Duggar went on to face Democrat Terri Osborne, a transgender woman, in the Nov. 3 general election and won the seat. But the general election campaign produced its own controversy. In the final days before the vote, a Baldwin County Board of Education member who had been elected as a Republican publicly backed Osborne over Duggar. A Republican activist filed a complaint against the board member with party leaders, and on the same day the board member reportedly moved to leave the party.
The Complaint Against a Chairman Candidate
The same activist also lodged a complaint against one of the two men seeking the county chairmanship. That complaint alleges the candidate quietly favored Osborne rather than Duggar during the general election. As evidence, it points to his decision to follow Osborne’s campaign page on social media and to a like he placed on a post announcing that someone had voted.
The complaint argues that the county chairman holds a position of real responsibility, including promoting Republican candidates, keeping the party unified and representing the values of Republican voters. In the complaint’s view, a chairman candidate’s favorable online engagement with the page of a Democratic candidate, during an active contest against a Republican nominee, deserves careful review before the committee places him in that role.
Key points of the dispute
- The vote: The county Republican Executive Committee elects a chairman on Saturday, Nov. 14, choosing between two committee members.
- The allegation: One candidate followed the Democratic House District 96 nominee’s campaign page and liked one of its posts during the general election.
- The defense: The candidate says the follow was unintentional and part of researching the opposition, and that the like was harmless.
- The request: The complainant wants party leadership to review the evidence and issue an independent ruling on whether party bylaws were followed.
The Candidate Calls It Opposition Research
The candidate rejected the accusations in a written response to fellow Republicans. He said he did not knowingly like Osborne’s page and that following it was part of his effort to understand the other side. Watching the Democratic campaign’s videos, he said, offered useful insight into what positions the Democrat would take in a very local race. He described that kind of homework as basic political strategy and said his opponent for chairman had not been doing it. As for liking a post where a person announced casting a ballot, he characterized it as harmless at worst.
He drew a sharp contrast between his own conduct and that of the school board member. He described her online encouragement of the Democrat as a deliberate act of defection that ran against the party’s bylaws, and he argued that his own research was exactly the kind of diligence Republicans should want from a chairman.
He went further, accusing the activist who filed the complaint, along with another member of the executive committee, of turning their attention to him unfairly. He said the other committee member had for some time been suggesting that he was secretly supporting Osborne. He asserted that both women are friends and that both disputes are rooted in their support for Duggar, which he said dated back to before the primary. In his response, he called the District 96 primary the ugliest race Baldwin County has seen, said it was marked by falsehoods and ended with a defamation dispute, and argued that it cost the county respect and influence in Montgomery. He posed pointed questions about who had benefited from the complaints, while saying he would leave the answer to readers.
The Complainant Says Questions Remain
The explanation did not settle the matter for the woman who filed the complaint. In a reply to party leadership, she said the candidate’s documented social media activity took place while Duggar was in an active race against Osborne, and that his explanation raised new questions. If the activity truly was opposition research, she asked, why had party leaders not been told about it ahead of time?
She also argued that, whatever his intent, his explanation does not answer whether his conduct complied with county or state Republican Party bylaws. She asked leadership to examine the evidence and reach an independent determination.
Turning to the broader rift, she said Republicans ought to be pulling together, yet the divisions from the District 96 primary persist. She noted that the candidate had supported Simpson, and said Baldwin County voters, including farm families with deep local roots, were entitled to back Duggar. Personal political loyalties and frustration over election outcomes, she said, should never outweigh respect for what voters decided. She added that the primary is over and leadership should be focused on unity, but that his response left her seriously doubtful he could bring the party together as chairman.
What a County Party Chairman Does
County party organizations are the local backbone of Alabama’s political parties. The county executive committee, made up of elected party members, handles much of the party’s business at the local level, and its chairman serves as the public face of the organization.
Day to day, the county party typically recruits and supports candidates, helps manage candidate qualifying for local offices on the party’s primary ballot, raises money, coordinates volunteers and organizes get-out-the-vote efforts. The chairman presides over executive committee meetings and often plays a central role when disputes over party rules arise, such as complaints about a member’s conduct or a candidate’s eligibility for the party’s ballot.
Those disputes are governed by the party’s bylaws and by rules set by the Alabama Republican Party. One state party rule allows committees to deny Republican ballot access to a candidate who publicly supported another party’s nominee in a prior election, unless a supermajority of the committee votes to make an exception. Rules like that are part of why public support for opposing candidates draws such close scrutiny inside party organizations.
Why the Outcome Matters Beyond the Party
Baldwin County is one of the fastest-growing counties in Alabama and one of the most reliably Republican, which means the party’s primaries often decide who ultimately holds office. Because of that, the leadership of the county Republican Party can have a significant influence on which candidates emerge, how primaries are conducted and how intraparty complaints are resolved.
The District 96 race showed how intense those primaries can become. A contest between two Republicans drew heavy outside spending and attack advertising, led to threats of legal action and left lingering hard feelings that carried into the general election. The disagreements now surfacing in the chairman’s race suggest those wounds have not yet healed.
What Happens Next
The executive committee is scheduled to cast its votes for chairman on Saturday. The complaint asks party leadership to review the candidate’s online activity and decide whether it violated any party rules, but it was not clear before the vote whether or how leadership would act on that request.
Separately, the complaint involving the school board member who backed the Democratic nominee remains part of the backdrop. Because she has reportedly left the party, questions about her future Republican ballot access may carry little practical weight, and party rules do not provide a way to remove someone from an elected school board seat.
Simpson’s potential defamation case against the two political groups is another unresolved thread from the District 96 contest. As of this week, he was still considering whether to sue.
Whoever emerges as chairman will inherit the task of bringing together a county party whose members agree on most policy questions but remain split over the personalities and tactics of a single legislative race. How the new leader handles the pending complaints, and whether the party can move past the District 96 feud before the next election cycle, will be watched closely by Republicans across Baldwin County.
