North Alabama House district draws rare three-candidate battle

The state’s only Alabama House contest with three qualified candidates features two independents at opposite sides of the political spectrum facing an incumbent Republican for a north Alabama House seat.

Rep. Ernie Yarbrough, R-Trinity, seeking his second term in the House, faces Trent Ford, a freelance software and website designer, and Angelo Mancuso, a former Alabama representative, in the general election next month.

The district includes parts of Colbert, Lawrence and Morgan counties. It has been solidly Republican since 2010.

Multiple messages seeking comment were left with Yarbrough last week. According to Yarbrough’s website, he supports anti-abortion policies, lowering taxes and “medical freedom.”

During his time in the Legislature, Yarbrough has been on the right edge of the Republican caucus. Yarbrough in 2023 sponsored a bill that would have allowed prosecutions of pregnant women for having abortions or attempting one. Yarbrough has also sponsored legislation to expand local law enforcement’s ability to enforce immigration laws and to introduce school vouchers. 

Ford said in an interview Thursday he joined the race because he didn’t “think that our current representative or most of the Legislature was equipped to be able to set proper guidelines in place” for data centers and artificial intelligence. Ford said he decided to run as an independent because he didn’t like “to be told by a national party what I have to say or what I have to do.”

“I believe in trying to go talk to the people and then figuring out what solutions work, and that I don’t think either party would represent me exactly, and that I want to be able to be there for other people too,” he said.

Ford’s priorities include eliminating the grocery tax, implementing protections against artificial intelligence and lowering power bills through nuclear and solar energy.

“Solar panels are actually the cheapest way to generate energy by orders of magnitudes, and you can put in solar panels faster than anything else that scales up,” Ford said. “And then expanded nuclear power would allow us more dependability for people worrying about when it’s not sunny, and if the batteries are low, if it’s been cloudy, all that nuclear power would give us a buffer. So combined, they would create a more robust system.”

Mancuso, a Democratic member of the Alabama House of Representatives from 1998 until 2002, originally sought the Republican nomination for District 7, but was removed by the Alabama Republican Party earlier this year. He said in an interview Friday he’s running because of locals asking him to.

“Patients kept coming in asking me to run, and I was like, ‘I don’t think I want to do this,’” Mancuso said. “I talked it over with my wife. She’s from Courtland in Lawrence County, and we just got to the point where we said these are the things that have to be done. These are the things that are being overlooked, and it just snowballed from there.”

The former representative called the removal a “setup” and accused the Republican Party of limiting voters’ options in the district.

“If you meet the criteria of a party, then you should have the option to run, and if the people who are in that district, who are, let’s say, the Republicans or the Democrats, let them vote. That’s what a primary is for,” Mancuso said.

A message seeking comment was left with the Alabama Republican Party Friday.

Mancuso’s priorities include getting a local trauma emergency room for Lawrence County, improving schools in the district and eliminating the grocery tax and suspending the gas tax.

“What’s happening now is, obviously the price is going higher and higher, and it’s a temporary suspension,” Mancuso said. “This is not something where we’re getting rid of the gas tax because some people say, ‘well, this is the money that’s used for the roads and the bridges.’ I understand that, but we have a lot of families that since there aren’t that many businesses in Lawrence County and in Colbert County, they have to travel.”

Mancuso said that voters should choose him because “I’m the one who has the vision.”

“I’m the one who has the experience. I’m the one who has the knowledge,” he said. “It’s like my whole life has been a preparation for where I am at this moment right now.”

Ford said people should choose him because he can identify with voters.

“I have had a wide range of experiences, so I can identify with a lot of people because I’ve done blue collar and white collar work,” Ford said. “I was raised to believe in public service and to believe in helping people, and even though I haven’t been in public office before, this is how I try to live my life.”

According to campaign finance records, through Sept. 1 Ford raised $12,200 and spent $6,900; Mancuso raised $2,000, loaned himself $138,700 and spent $119,900. Yarbrough raised $77,200 and spent $40,800.