Sheila Kuehl
When Kuehl was elected as a Democrat to the California Assembly in 1994 a Republican majority was seated for the first time in 20 years. This was due largely as an out-flowing of the enthusiasm stoked up by Newt Gingrich's strategy supporting Republicans for the Federal Legislature. Kuehl recalled "The Republican majority was quite a different kind of Republican, not a moderate, not a Rockefeller Republican. They were primarily Bible-thumpers and very right-wing. So it was not the most welcoming Republican group, though they loved Zelda Gilroy, and it was very difficult for them because they already liked me so much…. And to their surprise, we all got along very well. ...The Republicans were pretty horrible about LGBT stuff. They all virtually said stuff like, 'Well, they're all spawn of the devil, oh, but not you, Sheila….'"
Doug Jones (politician)
Jones is the first Democrat to win statewide office in Alabama since Lucy Baxley was elected President of the Alabama Public Service Commission in 2008. Democrats had not represented Alabama in the U.S. Senate since 1997, when Howell Heflin left office. Richard Shelby had been elected to the Senate as a Democrat in 1992 but switched to the Republican Party in 1994 following the Republican Revolution in which the party won a majority of seats in both chambers of Congress; Shelby had been the last Democrat to win a statewide federal election in Alabama until Jones' victory.