State senator and proud Alabama State University alumnus Bobby Singleton is the newly elected chairman of the Alabama Democratic Party.
With several hotly contested races happening in the state, Singleton hopes to hit the ground running in his new position and lead the party to victory in November.
Singleton sat down with WVAS News on Wednesday, August 12 for a wide-ranging interview on a variety of topics.
———
HOW DOES IT FEEL TO BE BACK ON THE CAMPUS OF ALABAMA STATE?
Thank you all for having me here. It's always a pleasure to be back home.
This is O' Mother Dear. I'm a 1984 graduate of the Alabama State University, so it's always a pleasure to be home.
I remember the day WVAS kicked off. One of the first songs that was played was Ben Sidran's "A Good Travel Agent." That was amazing. It was the first time I'd ever heard that song. Ben is an extraordinary artist, and he told a story about Coltrane, and jazz music, and seafood (laughs). It was a great day to see WVAS come alive.
WHY ARE YOU THE RIGHT PERSON TO LEAD THE ALABAMA DEMOCRATIC PARTY IN 2026, AND WHY DID YOU SEEK THE POSITION OF CHAIRMAN?
Let me just say this: I don't want to say that I am the answer, but at the end of the day, you know, being a member of the Alabama State Legislature, when you're there in the middle of the battles, you can get frustrated sometimes. When I looked around, I saw heated battles and the Republican Party had support. Republican women would come down. We just never got that support from the Democratic Party, so I asked a couple of people would they run for the Democratic Party chair? Other people just said that they didn't have the time. I'm not going to ask you to do something that I wouldn't do myself.
After the special session in April, having been one of the plaintiffs in the Milligan v. Allen case for redistricting, having gone through that and after we went through a special session, it just started to fall into my heart that we needed new energy at the top of the party.
We needed another level of a voice that could come and give the messaging of what we as Democrats would stand for.
I'm at the table. And my granddaddy used to say all the time, you're either at the table or you're on the menu. Right now as Democrats, we're on the menu. We're being eaten. It's looks like this is just a one-party state. We're in a super-minority with the legislature. What I want to do is to bring back that new energy, give us a voice, and be right there at the table.
YOU'VE ANNOUNCED A PLAN TO VISIT ALL 67 COUNTIES IN ALABAMA BEFORE ELECTION DAY FOR A "LISTENING TOUR." WHY WAS THAT A PRIORITY AFTER YOU WERE ELECTED AS PARTY CHAIRMAN?
Our county units, our county executive committee, they're closer to the people than anyone.
We can sit up here at the state level, and we can give orders and do the things that we need to do, but the people who are on the ground, that's where the battles are being fought.
I want to make sure that I get out there and talk to those county executive members, I want to be able to talk to the people who are coming to those meeting, and see if they are equipped with all the tools that they need in order to be a successful county unit, to be able to help Democrats in this election cycle.
We want to be able to raise funds to get money on the ground to them. I want them to be able to coordinate funds to get money on the ground to them. I want them to be able to coordinate with these different campaigns, whether they are House and Senate races, county commissioners and or congressional members. Even the governor's race. We want those county units connected into those campaigns so that we can be speaking in one voice.
WHAT ISSUES SHOULD DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATES EMPHASIZE IN ORDER TO ENGAGE VOTERS THIS NOVEMBER?
Inflation is one of the biggest things that we have right now. Gas prices are up. Farmers are out there trying to farm, but China's not buying our soybeans anymore.
The price of diesel fuel is up. We're feeling it in our pockets.
It's going to be those pocketbook issues.
Health care is going to be another one of those big things. We see rural hospitals being closed down on a daily basis, or if they're not closed down, they're in trouble. We want to make sure we can get into office with the ticket that we have, with Doug Jones at the top, and address that.
We want to address data centers. Data centers are being opposed across the state.
We can build guardrails and make sure that we're not stripping environmentally from these communities, their water and electricity. We want to make sure that it's a safe environment if they're going to come.
We want to make sure that if they're going to happen, we want to make sure that they're done properly. And in those communities that want to kick against data centers, we will support them until they get some real understanding about how data centers are going to be set up.
Minimum wage. A livable wage for people. How can we continue to have prices go up and we're still at $7 an hour, $7.35 an hour? Even the $15 that we propose is not a livable wage right now based on the inflation that we're having.
WHAT ARE THE BEST WAYS TO GENERATE ENTHUSIASM AND TURNOUT FROM PROSPECTIVE VOTERS WHO FEEL DISCONNECTED FROM POLITICS OR DISILLUSIONED ABOUT THE FUTURE?
Give people the opportunity to have a voice.
That's why the listening tours are there: for us to hear the people. I'm not going out there trying to tell people what we're going to do. I want to hear from them, so we can build our platform, make them feel important, make them understand that their issues matter to us.
And I think that is something that has not been done, lately. Listening to people.
We've been talking to and talking at folk, but we have not been listening and understanding and going back and trying to build a game plan around those issues that we hear.
People are hurting. This Alabama economy is not the best economy that we've had, and people are out there hurting. Whether they're Republicans or Democrats or independents, they're hurting in the pocketbooks.
HOW IMPORTANT IS IT FOR THE ALABAMA DEMOCRATIC PARTY TO HAVE STRONG REPRESENTATION ON THE CAMPUSES OF ALABAMA'S HBCUs, PARTICULARLY ALABAMA STATE UNIVERSITY?
I think it's important. We have to get students involved, we have to get students engaged. These are young minds. That's our future. When we talk about jobs and economic development, we're talking about workforce, these are the people that are going to go into the workforce. They should have a voice.
We should want to know what it takes to retain that talent here in the state of Alabama. A lot of our talents leave the state of Alabama and go to other states just to be able to do the things that they want to do.
We need to understand from these young college Democrats or even just young college students, whether they are Democrats or whatever, how do we retain the talent here in the state of Alabama so we can continue to grow out state and make our state a world class economy that is competitive with all the other economies in the world?
We need our people to stay here in Alabama, and that's why it's important to allow people to know that they have a voice.
WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON ALABAMA'S CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICTS? HOW SHOULD THEY BE DRAWN? WHO SHOULD DECIDE?
We as a state legislature should decide, as we are now.
The courts got into it. They should be fair. I was one of the plaintiffs (in Milligan v. Allen).
We thought that we got a good and fair ruling from the district courts, the three panel district court judges, which gave us a 2nd District that included Mobile.
And then we went into a special session, and in that special session, they took that away because of Louisiana v. Callais. That ruling came out, and it basically said that they can now draw districts based on partisan (reasons) and not on race.
But we're going to be competitive in CD2 right now. I think Rep. Shomari Figures is the greatest candidate that we can get for this. He's served some of those other counties already, and now we got some new counties.
But I will put Shomari up against anyone. Even Donald Trump himself.
Bring it on, we're ready for the fight.
WHAT IS YOUR MESSAGE TO UNDECIDED VOTERS?
To undecided voters, we want you to know that we set up a big tent. You're here, we welcome you. We believe in all the things that you believe in. We believe in economic development. We want to drive home jobs and economic development. We're talking about inflation. We want to make sure that we can push inflation down here in the state of Alabama.
We want to make sure that whatever we can do to help with the gas prices, lowering taxes on gas prices here in the state of Alabama, we are willing to do that once we get into power.
So we want to bring you home. We say to independents: come on back home. A lot of these independents were Democrats, and they left the Democratic Party.
This is a new day with new leadership, we're open, we're listening, and our doors are open to you.
So just come on back home. We welcome you, and we're going to win in November.
THANK YOU FOR DOING THIS, SENATOR.
Thank you! I love O' Mother Dear.
