Mobile County businessman Doug Harwell is challenging former State Sen. Rusty Glover (R-Semmes) for the Alabama Senate District 34 Republican nomination. The seat is being left open by State Sen. Jack Williams (R-Wilmer), who is running for Agriculture Commissioner.
Harwell said his business mind sets him apart from his opponent.
"I think it's my worth ethic, my conservative values, my experience as a business owner, my life experiences, owning a business and running a business," he said. "What you're seeing in the endorsements I got from the business community in Montgomery, the business community in Mobile, they want a business-minded person in the Senate."
Harwell, who says he is a conservative Republican, has already garnered several powerful endorsements, including Coastal 150, an exclusive group of business and community members in Baldwin and Mobile Counties, Coastal PAC, Mobile County Sheriff Paul Burch, Manufacture Alabama, Alabama General Contractors PAC, Business Council of Alabama's (BCA) political arm, ProgressPAC, Forest PAC and Alabama Trucking Association's TRUK PAC.
A lifelong resident of Mobile County, Harwell graduated from Mary G. Montgomery High School and went on to earn his bachelor's degree in business from the University of Mobile. He started a concrete and asphalt company, Harwell & Company, which has been successful.
Harwell served on the Mobile County School board for 12 years, representing Semmes, Citronelle and the northwest corner of the county.
Harwell said he knew years ago he would be involved in politics. While driving home from a job at a water utility. He said he remembers the day that God spoke to him.
"I knew in my heart that God told me that one day I'd be in politics," Harwell said. "That's completely true."
Harwell served for six years as commissioner of the local ballpark, followed by the sports authority board and his church board.
After he ran for County Commission in 2024 and didn't get elected, Harwell said he received a call from some people in Montgomery asking if he would consider running for the Senate.
"It's all to bring the business perspective, and I think people see me as a successful businessman and bringing that business mentality to the school board; they saw how it worked very well," Harwell said.
Priorities for Harwell include smart economic growth and safe communities.
To foster economic growth, Harwell said it's time to lower the costs of being in business, reform regulations for farmers and create a career path for children to benefit the industries in South Alabama, including aerospace, the Alabama Port, construction and agriculture.
"We got to get our students that leave our schools, every school, a career path, not a job," Harwell said.
As a former school board member, Harwell said he has seen how decisions in Montgomery affect local schools.
"In our classrooms, we need to be focused on education and not indoctrination and woke politics and social justice movements and all that stuff," he said. We need to make sure we're educating our children. We're going to focus on that. I think the number one thing, and I think everybody would agree with this, is we need to make sure our kids can read, comprehend, and write."
Harwell said he wants Alabamians to be able to vote on both a lottery and the expansion of gaming, including casinos, online betting and sports betting. However, he said those issues should be considered separately, not all together as proposed in the past.
On the public safety front, Harwell is pushing more funding for the District Attorney's office, new prisons and jails and a state-of-the-art mental health hospital in his district. He supports immigration enforcement and says if someone is in the country illegally, they should leave and stop costing taxpayers.
Harwell said he is pro-Second Amendment and pro-life.
"We have a moral compass," Harwell said. "It's very important. God has to be first and we have to respect that this country was built off that. We got to go back to that. I think in anything that we look at when we start removing God and prayer, you can see the results."
Harwell said he would fight to protect the natural resources in District 34, where many of his constituents depend on those natural resources. He said if elected, he will represent everyone in the state of Alabama, not just District 34.
Harwell said transparency, accountability and putting family and freedom first are important to him.
He and his wife, Sandy, have been married 36 years and are members of Orchard Assembly of God. They have three sons and seven grandchildren.
As a hardworking Christian conservative, Harwell vowed to serve as a public servant, just as God told him to in the 1990s.
The Republican primary is on May 19.
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