ATHENS, Ala. — A quiet election will take place this Saturday in which only 425 Republican voters will participate.

But the result will shape the trajectory of Alabama politics for years to come.

And to date, only one candidate is on the ballot.

John Wahl, the Alabama GOP vice chairman is the only announced candidate running to replace current party chair Terry Lathan, who will leave the position after a six-year run.

The state party chair — as described by Lathan — “is the hub of the entire state in every category.”

If elected, as is almost certain, Wahl will have a pivotal role in shaping upcoming statewide and national races, including a competition to fill Sen. Richard Shelby’s seat in 2022. The state’s senior senator has declared he will not run for re-election.

One of the expected contenders for the seat is Congressman Mo Brooks. Wahl, who has done campaign work for Brooks in the past, recently spoke at the congressman’s “Free the Speech” rally where Brooks repeated unfounded election fraud claims.

It’s that role as political kingmaker that has some worried Wahl may bring a brand of politics familiar to Republicans in Limestone County — where the 34-year-old lives and began his political career — to a statewide stage.

“I would be terrified for the Republican Party in the state of Alabama if (Wahl) were to become chair,” said Jason White, who twice launched runs for sheriff in the county.

From Limestone to Birmingham

Wahl is a former political strategist and a butterfly farmer by trade.

For more than a decade, both John Wahl and his older brother, Noah, have been building a reputation as political operators — never running for office themselves, but working for campaigns as staffers or consultants and steering local and statewide party policy.

John Wahl has done most of his political work behind the scenes while Noah Wahl, 41, as the chairman of the Limestone County party, has offered his comments on both local and statewide political dustups to news articles published by local and national outlets during the past half decade.

Most notably, Noah Wahl appeared in several national publications in 2017 supporting Roy Moore, a Republican candidate for Senate who at the time faced accusations of past sexual misconduct.

Noah Wahl was chairman of the Limestone County GOP at the time, and his brother, head of the consulting company WT&S, was a pollster who predicted Moore still had a lead in the race.

During multiple interviews — including ones with National Public Radio and the New York Times — Noah Wahl described the importance of the Alabama Republican Party not giving in to “the so-called establishment people in Washington” by rescinding its support for Moore.

The younger Wahl said last week he worries Republican values are “under attack,” especially at the federal level.

“The people of Alabama are conservative, they agree with Republican Party principles,” John Wahl said. “And I think that it’s important for the party to defend those principles and to communicate their message to the public.”

John Wahl has held a variety of roles with the local and state GOP since 2012.

Wahl said he was out knocking on doors for the party in his early teens but grew to become a political strategist — advising candidates including Tommy Tuberville, Will Ainsworth, Mo Brooks, John Merrill, Jim Ziegler and Moore, to name a few.

In 2010, he was communications director for Moore’s gubernatorial campaign. Wahl served as field director for the party in 2012 when Republicans picked up every statewide elected seat in play.

Wahl said his experience working with state party members, candidates and political activists gives him an edge.

When he decided to run for the statewide party position, Wahl said he stopped his strategist work in order to avoid a conflict of interest. WT&S had previously worked for the Alabama Republican Party as well as a variety of candidates for office.

Party politics back home

Party chairmen are expected to stay out of primaries, according to John Wahl.

“As party chairman my job is to create an even playing field for all candidates,” Wahl said. “I want to have a strong party that creates a framework for any candidate for any position to be able to run fairly and with the support of the Republican party.”

Ballot access varies from state to state and, within Alabama, county to county, said Lathan. In some states, the parties don’t have control over who appears on the ballot, a situation she said she thinks is unconstitutional.

Alabama law allows political parties to control who runs under their banners, and both parties have used that power to keep candidates from running in primaries.

“It’s a tool we have,” Lathan said. “For us, it’s rarely used. We want voters to choose.”

But the party is also very protective of who runs as a Republican and has “little tolerance for people who want to pretend they are … just to get elected,” she said.

Ballot challenges for local races are heard by the county parties, but candidates can appeal decisions to the state party and oftentimes are allowed to stay on the ballot by state leadership.

Alabama Democrats of the 1960s-1970s employed the “Radney Rule” — named after the Alabama legislator who championed loyalty tests for ballot access — but that practice fell out of favor with voters, Jesse Brown, retired political science professor, said.

“They didn’t like what they considered party bosses imposing their will on candidates,” he said. “You’re now seeing Republicans start doing this.”

That’s true in Limestone County, where John Wahl’s brother is the county GOP chairman.

In the past five years, three Limestone County candidates have been blocked from running as Republicans.

• Former Limestone County District Attorney Kristi Valls, who lost her seat as a Democrat and sought to win it back six years later after switching to the Republican Party
• Jason White, who ran as a Republican for sheriff in 2002 and lost but sought the seat again in 2018
• LaDon Townsend, who challenged an incumbent Republican county commissioner. Townsend received enough signatures to qualify as an independent candidate and beat the incumbent in the general election.

“It’s not normal to have three successful challenges to the ballot from one county,” Lathan said.

But county parties are allowed to self-govern, she added, “as long as they aren’t breaking any laws or superseding any bylaws of the Alabama Republican Party.”

In 2018, Jason White was told he could not run as a Republican for sheriff of Limestone County, even though he had run unsuccessfully as a Republican candidate in 2002.

White said the party ultimately decided to block him from the ballot after finding out he did not vote for Donald Trump in 2016, which left him confused.

“I didn’t think we really cared who people voted for, that it was up to the voter,” he said. “They made it a big deal that I didn’t vote for Trump at that time.”

But White said he believes the decision to keep him off the Republican ballot was more about his sexual orientation as a gay man than his politics.

In an email to the county party executive committee prior to the vote, chairman Noah Wahl referenced White’s “partner,” Brett Jones, the first openly gay Navy Seal and White’s husband since 2014.

Noah Wahl said at the time that he used the word to mean a business partner, but White believes otherwise.

“There was discussion about my orientation. It was very clear to me why I wasn’t allowed to be on the ballot. It had to do with my orientation,” he said.

The disqualification of Kristi Valls led the former Limestone County GOP chairman to introduce a resolution rebuking Noah Wahl and asking Valls be reinstated as a Republican candidate. The resolution failed on a 22-15 vote.

Most recently, a candidate running against an incumbent Limestone County Commissioner was told he could not run as a Republican. The candidate, LaDon Townsend, qualified to run as an independent and went on to win the general election.

John Wahl said he voted in one of those challenges — White’s — but was not a part of the other two decisions, which, he notes, were made by party committees and not one individual.

“It is my opinion that a chairman’s role in the ballot challenge process is to provide both sides with a fair hearing,” he said. “I would not even consider challenging a candidate myself as party chairman.”

Moreover, he said, he wants to be judged on his actions and not his brother’s.

“I really hope — whether it’s candidates I have worked with, or whether it’s family or other members of the party — I always hope I will be judged on my actions and where I’m coming from,” he said. “Get to know me and criticize what I’ve done and not what other people I’m connected to have done.”

Regardless of whether John Wahl pushes for more stringent regulation of who appears on primary ballots, what is clear through his campaigning that he recognizes the volatile state of the party as a whole.

“We’re coming into a time period where the party is going to be asking a lot of questions of itself,” Wahl told the Coffee County Republican Party in January. “Especially at the federal level — who are we? What do we need to change?”

  Navigating a post-Trump era

In a post-Trump era, the future of the Republican Party may be dictated by state party leaders who help pave the path for the next generation of GOP lawmakers.

If elected, that person in Alabama would be Wahl.

The upcoming class of GOP chairmen across the country would take on the role at a time when the party is deeply divided between those who have continued to support the former president and those who strayed away from him at the end of his term.

And unlike some Republicans at the federal level, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Wahl sees no separating Alabama politicians and voters from the former president.

“There’s very little distancing from Trump — in fact, quite the opposite,” he said.

Wahl — who worked for Trump-loyalists including Tuberville and Brooks — said the state party and it’s voters are and will continue to be supportive of the former president.

“The Republican Party of Alabama — Republicans in Alabama — are very supportive of Donald Trump,” he said. “… I think it’s important for the party to recognize the wishes of the Alabama people and embrace the America-first policies that Trump brought to the forefront.”

The growth of populist politics that ultimately put Trump in power began at the local and state party level, said Professor David Barker, director of the Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies at American University.

He said that mechanism likely won’t change anytime soon.

“Given their success, given the degree to which the GOP has changed and where the base is,” he said. “It’s hard for me to imagine these folks being inclined to, or having much incentive to, try to shift in some sort of a different direction.”

Barker pointed to Republicans like Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyoming, who have faced extreme backlash for speaking out against Trump.

“The party continues to be (Trump’s),” Barker said. “And when I say (Trump’s), that also extends to people like Marjorie Taylor Greene and Mo Brooks. They’re all part of the same family.”

Shelby’s announcement that he wouldn’t seek reelection in 2022 sparked statewide speculation about who would run to succeed the state’s top Republican.

Among the list of potential GOP candidates are some of Wahl’s former clients: Brooks, Secretary of State John Merrill and Lt. Gov. Will Ainsworth.

Lathan thinks a crowded primary is a sign of a “healthy organization,” and noted “the more the merrier.”

“It will be the voters who make the decision,” she said.

She also pushed back against the notion that the Republican Party is at a crossroads.

“I reject that there is a national pulling apart of the threads of the Republican Party,” she said. “There is actually more of a pull and split in the Democratic party.”

Still, with factions inside the Republican Party nationwide at loggerheads over whether to work to appeal to a more moderate base, rising leaders like Wahl appear poised to keep the party on the trajectory it has run for the past four years.

Athens News Courier Editor Lora Scripps contributed to this report.