Whether it’s Sen. Luther Strange or former Chief Justice Roy Moore who wins the Senate runoff election next Tuesday, many political pundits are already looking to the December special general election and comparing the fight between Democratic nominee Doug Jones and either Strange or Moore to how a relatively-unknown statewide politician from Holly Pond, Guy Hunt, was elected governor in 1986. 

At that time, Democratic candidates Bill Baxley, who was lieutenant governor and the heir apparent to succeed Gov. George Wallace, faced then-Attorney General Charles Graddick. In the election, there was no way a Republican could defeat a Democrat for the state’s highest office. However, when several issues surfaced, including the legality of crossover voting, Hunt, a Primitive Baptist preacher and Amway salesman, became Alabama’s first Republican governor since Reconstruction.

Can it happen again this year as voters look at what Jones brings to the table compared to the fact that Strange was appointed to fill the vacant Senate seat by soon-to-be-ousted Gov. Robert Bentley and Moore who was removed from the state’s highest court, not once, but twice? At least one poll indicates it might.

John Archibald’s column today on AL.com looks back at what happened when voters said enough was enough and elected a former Cullman County probate judge to be governor.