MONTGOMERY, Ala. – With just a week remaining before the general election, Republican Katherine Robertson and Democrat Jeff McLaughlin are pitching themselves to voters in the race to be Alabama’s next attorney general.
Starkly different from the chippy and expensive Republican primary and runoff, the race to be Alabama’s top lawyer has been somewhat sleepy, with few ads and relatively low spending from either candidate.
Current Attorney General Steve Marshall is term-limited and ran unsuccessfully in the Republican primary for U.S. Senate.
Robertson, Marshall’s chief counsel, faced a tough path to make it to the general election ballot, finishing first in a three-way primary and defeating former Alabama Supreme Court Justice Jay Mitchell in the runoff. McLaughlin, a former state representative, was unopposed in the Democratic primary.
Robertson and McLaughlin are both attorneys, but they’ve been on different sides of the legal world.
Robertson has spent nearly the last decade working as Marshall’s number two. She said this experience means she can have a steady transition into power at a time when the state will see a new face in nearly every statewide office.
“Even though I had great experience at the Justice Department and Senate Judiciary Committee and the Alabama Policy Institute, there is nothing that can replace being in the office, being in the trenches, and helping make some of the biggest decisions that the AG has had to make over the last 10 years,” Robertson said. “There’s no better training. There’s no better qualification.”
She has pitched herself as a natural successor to Marshall throughout her campaign, emphasizing her familiarity with the office and connections with Republican attorneys general across the country.
McLaughlin hasn’t worked in the attorney general’s office before, but he said his time in the Legislature means he understands how Montgomery works and how to get things done on Goat Hill.
He represented Marshall County in the Alabama House of Representatives from 2001 to 2010, repeatedly pushing for campaign finance reform to ban transfers between political action committees. He has since been working at his law practice in Guntersville, trying cases “from speeding tickets to multi-million dollar lawsuits.”
Though he’s familiar with Montgomery, McLaughlin said it’s his 35 years in the courtroom that make him the most qualified candidate in the race.
“It’s not strictly courtroom experience to run the AG’s office, I realize that, but that’s ultimately where the rubber meets the road in every case,” McLaughlin said. “How’s this going to play out in a trial? How’s this going to play out before a jury? How’s it going to play out before a judge? And I’ve got that experience, and as I’ve told folks, I’m a gray-headed, 66-year-old man – I put my experience to work for you.”
McLaughlin, who has been away from state government for more than 15 years, said he decided to run because he is concerned about the future of the state and the country. He often talks about his 6-month-old granddaughter, saying he would rather be at home with her than out on the road.
“I’m running for attorney general because I feel strongly that I need to do everything I can to protect the institutions of democracy to pass them on to my children and grandchildren,” McLaughlin said. “I feel like the way we have conducted our government for the last 250 years is under attack. It’s not a certain thing now that we’re governed by the rule of law. I think it’s important to restore the rule of law.”
Robertson said she’s running because she believes her experience will equip her to protect Alabama in a time of such a large transition. If elected, Robertson would be Alabama’s first female attorney general.
“That’s always been our mission statement: make the state safer and the country freer,” Robertson said. “And so everything falls into one of those two buckets. Either on the ordinary public safety side of things, or defending the rights of Alabamians nationally, or defending the sovereignty of our state to make its own decisions.”
Priorities
Robertson said her priorities would be similar to Marshall’s, mentioning improving children’s online safety and making the city of Montgomery safer.
She has said she doesn’t like to see Alabama “get pushed around” and that she would look for ways for Alabama to “regain control over things that were assigned to us in the Constitution and not let all the decisions be made out of Washington.”
Another priority Robertson shared was growing the staff at the attorney general’s office. She said that Alabama has one of the smallest AG’s offices in the country proportionate to its population.
“My goal going forward is to do as many cases in house as we possibly can and not have to hire outside counsel for really large cases,” Robertson said. “We want to be able to go toe to toe with any law firm in the country. If I win this election, my first order of business is going to be out to do some heavy recruiting on the benefits of being an attorney for your state, doing the work of the people and serving the public in a way that is very unique from our office.”
McLaughlin said he would focus on consumer protection efforts for all Alabamians if elected, mentioning advocating for ratepayers in front of the Public Service Commission and regulating data centers.
He would make “an institutional shift” to focus less on politics, he said.
“The AG’s office can do more to help ordinary people in the state of Alabama,” McLaughlin said. “In my opinion, the AG’s office has become very politicized in the last few years. I think the AG’s office has been used for things that don’t help ordinary folks in Alabama. These amicus briefs that have been filed on these political issues: that’s not helping the people of the state of Alabama. That’s political jockeying. That’s political favor currying.”
Another priority would be going after public corruption in an effort to restore public trust in government, he said.
Online safety
The candidates agree that the next attorney general will continue to play a large role in holding tech companies accountable and protecting children online.
The state has won several large settlements from tech giants under Marshall’s leadership, including at least $117 million from Meta, a minimum of $100 million from TikTok and $12.2 million from Roblox.
Robertson said the state’s consumer protection tools give the AG the ability to be “very agile” in reacting to problems, making the office the best entity to deal with tech as Congress struggles to reach a consensus on how to regulate the industry.
“Injunctive relief in these major settlements is a huge part of what we’re after right now,” Robertson said. “We’re the only state in the union that has the kind of protections in place with TikTok… We’d obviously love help from Congress to make it consistent across the board, but as it pertains to Alabama, I think we’re doing what we need to do here, and that fight’s not over.”
Using the millions the state will receive from the settlements, Robertson said she wants to do more to deal with the negative mental health impacts social media has had on youth if elected.
McLaughlin applauded Marshall and the office’s work on the TikTok settlement and said the AG should continue to lead on the issue.
“I would just step up the emphasis of the AG’s office in protecting the citizens of this state from the excesses and the purposeful actions taken by big data to hook our kids and confuse people who don’t understand how to use it,” McLaughlin said.
Crime
Asked how she would approach crime if elected, Robertson highlighted the work the office has already done under Marshall.
“Our criminal justice system looks totally different than it did when I started in the AG’s office a decade ago,” Robertson said. “We have far more honest sentences. We have substantially reduced prisoner ‘good time.’ We have regained rational thought out of the parole board. We’re punishing gangs and other violent offenses at much harsher levels. The tools are there, but you got to look at the local system as a whole.”
Robertson highlighted the success of the Metro Area Crime Suppression Unit that works in and around Montgomery but said it’s “not a substitute for local leadership or a local police department.”
She was a vocal supporter of legislation carried by state Sen. Will Barfoot, R-Pike Road, to force the Montgomery Police Department to increase its staffing ranks or risk a state takeover. The controversial bill passed out of the Senate, but the House adjourned for the year without taking up the measure.
Robertson said she hopes the Legislature will take up similar legislation in 2027.
McLaughlin said his approach to crime would center around supporting district attorneys and law enforcement across the state. He said he would carry on the AG’s duties of supporting law enforcement with a focus on defending and promoting the rule of law.
“The AG is the ultimate backstop for your DA’s offices around the state,” McLaughlin said. “It’s the ultimate lawyer for the thin blue line. I would continue that, and again, let our law enforcement people know that they have a champion in the AG’s office.”
McLaughlin said he would also ensure that the law is applied equally for everyone, carrying on the work he does in his law practice.
Campaign finance
Unlike the primary and runoff, the general election race has not involved flashy attack ads or millions in spending.
McLaughlin said he’s not accepting any money from corporations or political action committees, only donations from individuals. He self-financed his previous State House campaigns but said that it wasn’t possible to run the same kind of campaign for a statewide race.
“I can’t run a shoe leather campaign in a state this large, and believe it or not, the radio stations won’t play your ads for free,” McLaughlin said. “So yes, I’ve taken money from individuals, but I still don’t take them from PACs or corporations, just individuals. I appreciate the support I’ve gotten, and I really try to stretch it as far as I can for people, let people know that I’ll be a very good steward of their money.”
As of Friday afternoon, McLaughlin has raised $43,000 over the course of the race. He has spent $33,000 and heads into the final push of the campaign with around $11,000 on hand.
Robertson has brought in $6.62 million since the beginning of her campaign and has spent $6.11 million. She has a war chest of $524,000.
Echoing concerns raised by Robertson’s primary opponents, McLaughlin said that Robertson’s fundraising gives him pause because of the large amounts of money coming from a single source.
“Just look at my campaign contributions and look at hers,” McLaughlin said. “Notice the repetitive nature of certain groups just over and over giving her $50,000 or $100,000 or $200,000. Wow, that should make you concerned. It makes me concerned, and that would be for anybody, not just my opponent. For any candidate at the state level, to be taking that kind of money from one source, that’s worrisome to me.”
Robertson has received $1.1 million from First Principles Action Inc., $1.05 million from Frontline Leaders Action Inc. and $680,000 from Rule of Law Action Fund since joining the race. The groups are part of a network of conservative legal advocates pooling resources to help elect conservative jurists and attorneys general.
Twenty-two individuals, corporations and PACs have donated more than $50,000 to her campaign for a total of $4.41 million, according to campaign finance records on the secretary of state’s website.
Robertson, in response to McLaughlin’s comments, said that coming out ahead on the ballot twice already during this election cycle means she is thoroughly vetted by Alabama’s voters.
“I ran in a three-way primary and obviously a two-way runoff, and I’ve been to all 67 counties more than once,” Robertson said. “So I’ve been thoroughly vetted. He didn’t run against anyone, and best I can tell is not out campaigning at all. So the voters know everything they need to know about me. I have a decade of a public track record in a very public position, so when people go vote on Nov. 3, they’re going to know a whole lot more about me than they’ll know about him.”
The general election is Nov. 3.